About twenty members of Rainforest Relief, the New York Climate Action Group and the Coney Island Polar Bear Club took a plunge in the 'arctic' waters of the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island, NY to highlight the city's contribution to climate change and to call on the public and policy makers to keep winter cold.

The action was in conjunction with the National Polar Bear Plunge, a project of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

The groups were taking the plunge to call attention to the continuing use of massive amounts of tropical hardwoods by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The wood used by Parks — ipê and more recently, cumaru — is logged from the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Peru. Parks uses the wood for the decking and now unerstructure of over 10 miles of coastal boardwalks, including in Coney Island, Brighton Beach, The Rockaways and in Staten Island, as well as for tens of thousands of new and renovated park benches.

Other agencies use large amounts of rainforest woods as well. The NYC Department of Transportation uses greenheart logged from the rainforests of Guyana. The NYC Transit Authority, a division of Metropolitan Transit Authority, a state agency, uses massive amounts of ekki logged from the rainforests of West Africa for the crossties of hundreds of miles of subway tracks.

As well, other organizations that are part of the city's administration use large amounts of rainforest wood, including the Hudson River Park Conservancy (ipê for boardwalk and benches), Central Park Conservancy, Prospect Park Conservancy, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (ipê for boardwalks, bridge decking and benches), Battery Park Conservancy (ipê and teak for benches), South Street Seaport (ekki for decking) and many others.

This massive consumption makes New York City the largest end-user of tropical hardwoods in North America. This demand is in turn driving massive logging in the Amazon and Africa. Logging for export is the primary factor leading to deforestation of tropical forests. Deforestation is contributing 25% of the human-caused greenhouse gases leading to climate change.

The groups involved in the Polar Bear Plunge are calling on the City of New York to end the use of tropical hardwoods and thus reduce the city's contribution to climate change.

The action was covered by the Metro newspaper, News Channel 12 and the Daily News.