10 innovative ideas to help climate crisis on display at NYC science fair

NYC Climate Week’s inaugural science fair opened on Wednesday at the High Line, where it showcased 10 innovations aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

Start-ups and inventors presented their products — which ranged from hybrid electric jets to sunglasses made from captured carbon dioxide — along the narrow strip between West 14 and 17th streets. The science fair aims to give the public an opportunity to interact with the innovations and ask the creators questions directly. The event was sponsored by the Emerson Collective, a nonprofit with a goal to solve complex issues such as climate change through financial investment and philanthropy.

“Our hope is to absolutely inject hope during climate week,” said Dawn Lippert, senior climate adviser at the Emerson Collective. “I hope people come away from the climate science fair with a sense of optimism of what’s possible in solving climate change.”

The Emerson Collective invited this set of creators to demonstrate ways to reduce the carbon footprint of everyday human life, including what we wear. Textile maker Evrnu does more than recycle clothes — it takes old materials, mostly polyester and cotton, and breaks them down to their basic building blocks to make reusable fibers called Nucycl. The result is a more sustainable way to cut waste while repurposing the 21 billion pounds of textiles every year that go straight to U.S. landfills. The company has worked with major brands such as Zara, Pangaea and Levi’s.

“I saw how we’re cutting corners around the environment to make apparel and how people are living as a result of that damage,” said Stacy Flynn, founder of Evrnu. “I decided that I wanted to use the rest of my career to finding solutions where we weren’t cutting corners around environment and people.”