User:Usphelan/sandbox

Ecology[edit]
According to the A. W. Kuchler U.S. potential natural vegetation types, Long Beach Island, New Jersey would have a dominant vegetation type of Northern Cordgrass (73) with a dominant vegetation form of Coastal Prairie (20).

Like many other costal communities, Long Beach Island is facing climate change effects. The severity and frequency of storm and storm surges has increased along with the threat of rising sea levels. Plans have been enacted to "storm proof" the homes by adding more sand to the dunes. "Ecological connections are maintained or restored from the sand beach through the tidal bay to the mainland Pine Barrens, allowing species to migrate inland as their ecosystems change over time." This change also attracts more tourists to the area due to a larger and wider beach area. The building up of the dunes and geomorphological change should be a positive change environmentally and economically. However, with many other ecological changes thought up and enacted by humans, the Long Beach Island ecosystem might change for the worse.

Community involvement[edit]
Fink serves on the board of trustees of New York University, where he holds various chairmanships including chair of the Financial Affairs Committee. He also co-chairs the NYU Langone Medical Center board of trustees and is a trustee of the Boys and Girl's Club of New York. Fink is also on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation. Fink founded the Lori and Laurence Fink Center for Finance & Investments at UCLA Anderson in 2009, and currently serves as chairman of the board.

In December 2016, Fink joined a business forum assembled by then president-elect Donald Trump to provide strategic and policy advice on economic issues.

In his 2018 annual open letter to CEOs, he called for corporations to play an active role in improving the environment, working to better their communities, and increasing the diversity of their workforces. This has been taken as evidence of a move by Blackrock, one of the largest public investors, to proactively enforce these targets. In his 2019 open letter Fink said that companies and their CEOs must step into a leadership vacuum to tackle social and political issues when governments fail to address these issues.

After the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, Fink in October 2018 cancelled plans to attend an investment conference in Saudi Arabia.

In his 2020 annual open letter, Fink announced environmental sustainability as core goal for BlackRock's future investment decisions. In this letter, he explained how climate will become a driver in economics, effecting all aspects of the economy. He also divested in a separate letter (to investors) that BlackRock will be cutting ties with previous investments involving thermal coal and other investments that have a large environmental risk. Georgica Pond is a 290-acre (1.2 km2) coastal lagoon on the west border of East Hampton Village and Wainscott, and was the site of a Summer White House of Bill Clinton in 1998 and 1999.

The lagoon is separated by a 50-foot (15 m) sandbar and is managed by the East Hampton Trustees who monitor a cycle of draining the lagoon and replenishing it with Atlantic Ocean water. The Lagoon consists of 6 finger like coves shooting out from the main body of water, Georgica Cove, Eel Creek, Goose Creek, Talmage Creek, Seabury Creek, and Jones Creek.

Celebrities on its banks include Steven Spielberg, Ronald Perelman, developer Harry Macklowe and formerly Martha Stewart and Calvin Klein.

Bill and Hillary Clinton stayed at the Spielberg home during the summer vacations in 1998 and 1999. Rumors circulated in 1998 that the Secret Service had drained the pond looking for submarines after the lagoon drained shortly after Clinton's visit.

Groyne jetties at the pond have been accused of causing beach erosion in Southampton, New York as they are thought to interrupt the normal east to west flow of sand in the longshore drift. Dunehampton unsuccessfully attempted to incorporate in part to have legal standing in the debate. Likewise, Sagaponack, New York incorporated for the same reason.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Gerogica Pond was involved in a tradition known as "letting" that was carried out by local Indian Tribes. This entails discharging fresh water from the pond into a bay or ocean. This was an issue primarily because it was thought to disturbs the pond's ecosystem and lower the water table in the area. This addition of saltwater and anadromous species into the pond could be detrimental to the Pond's living ecosystem. However, in the Georgica Pond case, "letting" done in the late 1980s and 1990s relieved flooding and made the pond more ecologically sound. It was found that letting seemed to be an overall benefit to the pond's ecology. It was also found that letting made flooding less frequent and lessened the magnitude of the flood.

Georgica Pond is where the famed Grey Gardens estate is located.

A sandy area near the pond is a nesting ground for the piping plover.