Essays by Frank J. Regan

RochesterEnvironment.com

Connecting the dots on Rochester area environmental Issues   

 

Essay Contents:  Media | Climate Change |Transportation | Energy |Environmental Health | Great Lakes | Green Business |  Wildlife | Invasive Species | Air Quality | Recycling | Parks |

 

fall in RochesterOn the most crucial issue of our time—Is mankind achieving a sustainable environment?—I argue that the public, and even scientists, are missing the obvious truth about our environmental problems, believing mistakenly that there is room for compromise with Nature.

These essays are an attempt to understand our Rochester-area environment in the world environmental context.

 

 

 

Earth Day: The Real Meaning A year doesn’t go by where there isn’t at least one article about the real meaning behind each approaching holiday. Meaning, every Christmas there’s a story about the true meaning of December 25th, something besides massive shopping. Or, the Fourth of July, which is about our country’s founding values, and not smuggling fireworks into a state that forbids them. Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, not really about terrorizing the turkey population. more...

 

Environment and the Media

Rochester area media needs to inform the public consistently about our environment, especially with thorough investigative reporting.

  • Our environment, Net Neutrality, and us idiots   Whether or not you have been following the Net Neutrality issue, this raging controversy could have a profound effect on your life.  The state of the free, unfettered environmental information network that the Internet has delivered to the public for the past decade might be in jeopardy if Net Neutrality is compromised by a new ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress. Here’s the situation: “In recent weeks, top officials from the Federal Communications Commission have held closed-door meetings to negotiate with the country’s biggest communications companies and online service providers on how the Internet should be regulated.” –8/05/2010 “The Net Neutrality Spat Explained” ProPublica   I don’t mean to imply that the Internet is a rigorous medium or that environmentalism on the net hasn’t been messy.  It has.  Everyone with a computer and Internet connection has been able to write a report, give an opinion, argue a position, investigate a story, and respond to every little fact or observation about our environment since the Internet went public.  No posted thought seems to have been denied access (in the US anyway).  That is a good thing, though it would be more helpful if more reason and less hysterics pervaded this world-wide conversation.   more...
  • Will the Internet save the news? There are those who believe that our news media is experiencing a colossal breakdown. Consolidations of the major media empires and the loss of revenue due to massive reductions in advertising revenues, which fueled the news media since the early 1800’s, is tearing down the financial structure that gave us competitive and investigative journalism. The main proponents of this view, Bob McChesney and John Nichols, spell out the problem in their new book: “The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again.”  more...
  • Glut of bear sightings around Rochester, NY Rochester, NY’s local media is falling all over itself reporting on the whereabouts of bears in our vicinity. One pops up in Pittsford, another (maybe the same one), appears in Irondequoit. Everyday there seems to be a new sighting: they look for them here; they look for them there, those darn illusive black bears. I shouldn’t joke. The American black bear (Ursus americanus) once common to our area has been making a comeback. And because they are potentially dangerous, the public should be aware of them. To learn about the black bear, and what to do in case you come across one, go here Black Bear - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). But it seems to me that if we were really serious about black bear sightings, we (government, media, a business) would hire a team of students, place monitors on the bears, and track them. This would provide jobs for students and increase public safety. And we’d learn a lot about living with wild bears.  more...
  • The future of investigating reporting on our environment: We came across this story about how in the present media crisis the prospect for investigative reporting might shake out: 'Newsonomics' Predicts The Future Of The Media : NPR  more...
  • We’re Going Blind Trying to negotiate the world as your sight gets worse does not make life easier. Rather, it becomes more difficult because you often miss critical warning signs. That’s worth keeping in mind as this week’s news illuminates a further decline in the public’s ability to ‘see’ the world around them. Story #1. Supreme Court Voids Campaign Spending Curbs - BusinessWeek.com- msnbc.com “A divided court strikes down decades-old restrictions on corporate campaign spending, 5-4, reversing two of its precedents and freeing companies to advertise” Although there has always been a disproportionate advantage for large corporations to self-servingly frame issues before public via the media, lately it has become more blatant and dire. Relying on corporations, who own most mainstream media, to report on environmental malfeasance is putting the fox in the henhouse. more...
  • Kill Your TV! When you're in a hole, stop digging: Stop listening to the same media that misinformed you about the Iraq War and the dangers of Global Warming! Why do most Americans say they are concerned about the environment (at least in some polls), but don't vote for candidates with strong environmental records. Why do we continue to living our destructive, non-sustainable way of life (the United States has only a fraction of the world's population and uses 25% of the fossil fuels) despite all the evidence that it going to be a terrific cost to future generations? Is it because Americans are especially selfish or dense? I don't think so. I think the answer to most of our environmental problems is that we really don't get it; we don't understand the depth of our environmental problems because most of us are still trying to inform ourselves about the world in the same old way that led us to the state we are in--our environment on the brink of disaster. (By the way, if you think this last statement is an exaggeration, it's an indication that your listening to the same deluding media.) more..
  • Thoughtful Feedback Seemingly, online media has opened itself to a plethora of mindless ranting by those without even a crazy ideology to spur them on. I speak of feedback on online news sites that are unmonitored and unfiltered so any nutcase with a computer, an Internet connection, and only a modicum of sense is allowed to write responses to local news stories online. You know what I’m talking about: follow any online article that offers reader’s responses and you’ve probably long since avoided those parts of the articles because it’s a vast wasteland of craven lunacy. This is a tragedy because the medium where we get our news is moving to the Internet where interaction between the media and its readers is critical and will add greatly to our Democracy. more...
  • Environmental groups pick up where the media falls down The public is more aware of the importance of environmental issues because environmental groups are helping to connect the dots. Left to their own, the media only publishes environmental stories when something happens that their editors think will grab the public’s attention and bring in more money. more...
  • A Question: Mainstream Media and Climate Change News Recently, I’ve come across on the Internet environmental scene speculations that the mainstream media refuses to connect ‘extreme’ weather events like the increase flooding in the West, Hurricane Katrina, droughts around the world, to Global Warming. Global Warming does predict that there will be more extreme weather events, including not so much more hurricanes (for example) as most intense hurricanes when they occur. more...
  • Media Responsibility  As I live and Breathe: Just when you think the media has become so Objective in their reporting that somehow they think they can stand outside of our environment and simply report on the decline of our environment, you read a story like this. Major Kudos for News 8/FOX Rochester. The movement is growing. The pubic and even the media is realizing that we cannot stand aside while that which keeps us alive, our environment, is in serious jeopardy - just check out some of these Rochester Environmental Issues. Hopefully, more and more mainstream media will recognize their innate responsibility as our informers, who have been protected with a special privilege under the US Bill of Rights, to inform us on the state of our environment—so that we may have the information we need to make informed choices about that which matters most. more...
  • Media Priorities Hannah Montana made it to Rochester during an almost blizzard and out again. I don’t know who Hannah Montana is, but I’m glad she made it safely to and from Rochester. I know this because the local news was saturated with this topic all weekend. I could not find, however, a story about the climate talks in Bali, where the US dragged its feet on coming to an agreemenTell Your Story at SaveTheInternet.comt with the rest of the world on curbing Global Warming gases. more...
  • Stop Big Media & Stop Global Warming In just five days, the Federal Communications Commission plans to open the floodgates of further media consolidation across America. If FCC Chairman Kevin Martin gets his way, your community will be inundated with even more mass-produced celebrity gossip and infotainment, and less local reporting and quality journalism: more of the the junk news that is making us sick. more...
  • About changing your media I believe in this day, when mainstream, corporate media blurs and spins important environmental information that we need to survive because of their specific ideologies and their shareholder’s economic interests, we have to change our media. We have to change how we get our media and the sources we use to inform us of what’s going on. If the media we are accustomed to has mislead us or chooses on an unsound basis which stores we shall listen to and which they want us to ignore, then we have to change. There’s no shortage of new and old media out there. And by “out there,” one of the main conduits for finding out what exactly is going on in our environment is too surf around the Internet for trusted news sources, which can come from other countries, other industries, other groups—voices that don’t appear on our television or radios (Or, maybe they do, but we could not reach them except for the power of the Internet). more...

 

Climate Change

The Rochester, NY area is not going dodge the Climate Change crisis,  See how.

  • Strange Days Ahead Doesn’t it seem odd to you here in the Rochester, NY region to read about a critical indication of Climate Change in our area only being reported across the ocean at the BBC? “Climate change 'makes birds shrink' in North America” (3/12/2010). Along with a loony media in rapture over their invention called climategate, the public’s disinclination to focus on the most potentially disastrous environmental change of our age, and our irrational denial of the obvious fact that our planet is warming up, we have to search the globe to discover what changes will occur here. In the face of a real threat to our existence, strange days are indeed ahead: more warming, more denial. more...
  • Connecting the Green Dots The Copenhagen Climate Conference is over and almost everyone, including President Obama himself, admits failure: “I think that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen.” (Obama on Health Reform Politics, Copenhagen Climate Outcome, 12/23/09 PBS: Newshour) Consequently, depending on how you connect the dots of this historic event, you will tend to view Copenhagen as positive, negative, or not relevant to your life. ‘Green Dots’, or specific environmental events like say an oil spill or an attempt by 190 nations to come to an agreement on how to tackle climate change, can be connected in many ways in the public’s mind. I mean this in the sense that one has the inalienable right to view these events in any way they wish. Logic or using science as your model for framing arguments may not be your thing. more...
  • Earth-fixing Gadgets In the back of many modern minds there probably nestles the comforting conviction that science will get us out of our twenty-first century environmental mess. It must be so because despite all signs that world-wide pollution rages on, our climate changes, and our oceans are dying, we go happily along as if there were no tomorrow. Instead of making the hard ethical choices need to get six billion souls focused on our environment, we trust in technology. more...
  • Climate Change: Are We Off the Hook? It must be heartwarming for climate change skeptics that the recent climate email flare-up in the news (In e-mails, science of warming is hot debate - washingtonpost.com) seems to question the validity of the current Climate Crisis. Nothing dilutes action like doubt. For action, especially wholesale planetary action on curbing global warming gases might have a devastating effect on the status quo of those thriving in our present economy. And that possible scenario must create great apprehension in the hearts of those whose ideology and values seem threatened by an abrupt, massive movement towards a sustainable way of life. more...
  • Copenhagen Comes to Rochester! Except for our local institutions of higher learning, most Rochesterians seem to think that what’s going to happen (or not happen) in Copenhagen [UN Climate Change Conference, DEC 7-18] is about as important as last year’s bird nest. But, Copenhagen is coming to Rochester. It’s coming to Buffalo, Albany, NYC, Mexico City, Ireland, and Timbuktu. more...
  • Rochester’s 350.org Coverage Judging from the media response around the world, the 350.org event has been a hit: October 24 Press Release | 350.org “350.org To Stage Largest Day of Environmental Action in History | 5,242 Simultaneous Events on Climate in 181 Countries.” “Citizens, scientists and world leaders in 181 countries will take to nearby streets, mountains, parks, and reefs today to demand strong action on climate change, in what will be the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history. 5,242 rallies and creative demonstrations will take place, all of them centered on the number 350, to draw attention to 350 parts per million (ppm), which an overwhelming number of scientists now insist is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” more...
  • 350 Why It Matters 350 Why It Matters “350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in ‘Parts Per Million’ in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it's the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.” –from Understanding 350 | 350.org Several events are going on in Rochester this coming Saturday for the 350.org and we hope you will attend one. If enough people demonstrate in a positive way that they acknowledge the problem of Climate Change and are willing to make their voice heard, it might make a difference. It’s all on 350.org.   more...
  • Climate change will hit home—it’s only a matter of how hard. The latest in climate forecasts for our region, NEW YORK is the report "Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment" by Union of Concerned Scientists. It reemphasizes and updates predictions of massive changes for our area due to climate change. There are other reports (“Forecast For New York” by Environmental Advocates of New York) and undoubtedly there will be more, for that is the direction things are going. more...

 

Transportation

How we get around the Rochester area now and in the future will have a profound affect on our environment

  • Rochester's Bicycle Plan, why bother? - There’s still time (until August 31st) to comment on the Rochester Bicycling Master Plan: “While the plan will provide conceptual design and inventory work with respect to on-street bike lanes, it will also consider shared lane markings (sharrows), bicycle boulevards, bicycle parking, commuter facilities (e.g. showers, lockers), bicycle sharing, and more. ” But why bother, especially if you don’t have a bike, wouldn’t bike on our streets even if you did, and wish those who do bicycle would lend an air of predictability to their bicycling behavior? Before I bury my lead, let me say you should comment because bicycling as an alternative transportation is the transportation mode most likely to be acted upon by those who decide on such things in our region. I could quote a lot of boring statistics about how bicycling is healthier for you and better for our environment than driving your greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicle. But this you can probably figure out without a lot of supporting data. Data and reason are not the problems with changing our transportation behavior, motivation is.   more...
  • Rochester bicycle boulevard ride a success Bicycle Boulevard demonstration ride in Rochester, NY Upper Monroe neighborhood Frank J. Regan On Sunday, May 23 at 1 PM in Cobbs Hill Park, over forty bicyclists began a bicycle boulevard demonstration ride through the Upper Monroe neighborhood in Rochester, New York. They were not racers, or members of a single bicycling club, or recruits for a charity ride. They were just ordinary folks finding out what a bicycle boulevard would look and feel like in our area. (May 29. 2010) Rochester Latest Breaking News by Trusted Local Experts
  • Bicycle Friendly Rochester - There are those who believe that Transportation in Rochester could be a bicycle friendly community as Copenhagen.  That would be something to behold. Check out: Streetfilms | Copenhagen’s Climate-Friendly, Bike-Friendly Streets "Tens of thousands of people from nearly every nation on earth have descended on Copenhagen this month for the UN climate summit. As the delegates try to piece together a framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they're also absorbing lessons from one of the world's leading cities in sustainable transportation. In Copenhagen, fully 37 percent of commute trips are made by bike, and mode share among city residents alone is even higher. "
  • Walk? Walking for bipeds was “the cat’s pajamas” for four millions years. That is, putting humanity’s one hairy foot before another got us around just fine. Then, within a relatively short period of time, our species took to climbing on other animals’ backs, floating stuff on water, then the wheel, which brought on carts, trains, and then we took to the skies. But mostly, since the horseless carriage, autos get us around. In fact, the car culture so dictates transportation in the United States that few of us, even when the distance is short, walk. more...
  • Complete Streets An integral part of any communities Transportation efforts must be the concept of Complete Streets so that the best and most efficient use of our streets can be made for pedestrians, bicyclers, and anyone who wants to get around. Complete Streets The streets of our cities and towns are an important part of the livability of our communities. They ought to be for everyone, whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker or wheelchair user, bus rider or shopkeeper. But too many of our streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse, creeping traffic jams. more...
  • How Walkable is Rochester, NY? Walking is a great way to get around and it's Transportation. Take your own survey and find out how Walkable Rochester is: Walkability Checklist --from Partnership for a Walkable America The Partnership for a Walkable America (PWA) is a national coalition working to improve the conditions for walking in America and to increase the number of Americans who walk regularly. The members are national governmental agencies and non-profit organizations concerned about three main areas: Health, Safety and the Environment. more...
  • Getting Up to Snuff on High Speed Rail: National Public Radio has offered a great series on High Speed Raid across the country.  Because this mode of transportation may be coming to our area, because of the Obama’s desire to help communities with jobs and help our environment, this series of programs is especially useful.  It’s not all happy talk.  Getting High Speed Raid is complicated and involves many aspects, but other communities have done it.  Learn from them.  Check it out: On The Fast Track? The Obama administration is pushing the development of high-speed-rail lines, claiming that ultrafast trains would ease traffic, help the environment and boost the economy. Critics question those claims — and say the United States has a long way to go to catch up with other countries' rail travel. NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR  more...
  • Help biking in Rochester, help our area's environment Increasing bicycling for the Rochester, NY area will reduce air pollution, positively affect your health, decrease traffic on our streets and give you a chance to smell our roses and see our sites.  Check out this site and help out getting more bike to more people.     R Community Bikes: Rochester, New York "R Community Bikes is a grassroots, 501(c)3 organization that collects and repairs used bicycles for distribution, free of charge, to Rochester, NY's most needy children and adults. Our mission is meeting the basic transportation needs of those in the community who depend on bikes for recreation as well as for transport to work, school, rehabilitation programs, and training sessions. more...
  • Get There By Bike - Get the Map. Bike to work, to that festival, that trail, or just about anywhere you want to go in Rochester by using the map: Genesee Transportation Council - TIP Greater Rochester Area Bicycling Map Now Available | The Greater Rochester Area Bicycling Map, prepared by the Genesee Transportation Council utilizing road ratings provided by volunteer members of the Rochester Bicycling Club, is now available.   The ratings represent the opinions of experienced bicyclists on the rideability of major roads based on existing road conditions and features such as pavement width and quality, traffic volumes, presence and type of shoulders, and posted speed limits. more...
  • New Transportation idea in Rochester This could change Rochester's concept of Transportation, check it out: Rochester Greenway The Rochester Greenway "A revolutionary all-weather alternative energy transitway for bikes, e-vehicles, joggers, and skaters connecting RIT, U of R, and MCC, downtown Rochester. Three Opportunities, One Big Idea." more...
  • Limited Transportation Choices Few things strike more dread in the American heart than being told that our choices are going to be limited. We are an “in the Pursuit of Happiness” kind of people. The day after President Obama was elected many gun owners feared that their right to bear arms was going to be compromised and acted accordingly. "Everybody was scared he was going to take the ammo away or he was going to tax it out of sight on the prices," Dury says. "So people started stocking up, buying half a lifetime to a lifetime supply of ammo all at one time." Apr-07-2009, “All Things Considered”  more...
  • Getting Around Tomorrow A recent poll in Rochester on high-speed rail (3/20/09 Rochester Business Journal ) showed Rochesterians favoring this flashy mode of travel. Proponents say it will create jobs, reduced air pollution, and get us around more quickly. There are other ideas floating around town as federal dollars float in, including funds to develop hydrogen fuel. Realistically, most if not all that fed money will be used for fixing and updating our highway infrastructure. Road construction and bridge repair are shovel-ready; already in regional budgets, and they are going to create immediate jobs. For the time being, traveling around Rochester will not leap suddenly into the breath-taking fictional world of the Jetsons.  more...
  • It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over: Rochester and Monroe County receive a coveted “Honorable Mention” Bicycle Friendly Award and it shows our community cares about people getting around our city safely on non-polluting transportation. Hopefully, winning this award, which brings together the efforts of the City of Rochester, the County of Monroe, the NYS Department of Transportation, The Genesee Transportation Council, and the Rochester Bicycling Club and others to improve our streets for an environmentally safe mode of transportation. more...

 

Energy

How we get and use energy has a profound effect on our environment

  • Wind or natural gas for Rochester’s energy, there’s a difference In the Rochester, NY region today, we have two major energy choices before us. Do we allow off-shore wind projects to go forward? Do we allow drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Gas Shale? Granted, these choices are not mutually exclusive; we can deny both, accept both, or accept one and not the other. However, how we make these choices will greatly affect our future.  more...
  • Rochester’s hands across the sand A recent demonstration at Charlotte Beach against the BP Oil Spill was well covered by the local media, as far they went that is.  (July 3, 2010) Rochester News, Restaurants, more by Top Local Experts
  • Rochester’s energy solutions, connecting the dots At the risk of pushing everyone’s buttons, you’d think the disastrous BP oil spill, the din over drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Gas Shale, a couple of recent nuclear power issues, and the energy bill stalled in Congress, would galvanize the local press and the public to seriously consider wind power for some of our energy needs. (Check here for the above stories: Rochester Environmental News ). But the New York State Power Authority’s Great Lakes Offshore Wind Project (GLOW) isn’t getting much attention. more...
  • Should you let your pickup drink biofuels? Rochester Environmental News Examiner My Bio · Articles To keep your pickup healthy and running smoothly, it requires some sort of fluid that burns. I’m not a mechanic, but I’m guessing that the brewski you love won’t work so well in your vehicle. Gasoline works... Keep Reading »  (June 5, 2010) Rochester News, Restaurants, more by Top Local Experts [more on Energy in our aera]
  • Forced Energy Choices Are natural gas and nuclear power going to be our energy future? They probably will be, but not because they are our best energy solutions. Despite all the controversy about how we should power our existence as our population grows and our planet warms up, at the end of the day we’ll be scared into bad energy solutions. Our best energy solutions are conservation and renewable energy sources like wind and solar. They could compete for our baseload energy needs if our government subsidized, stimulated, and greased the political wheels for battery storage research like our government does for nuclear, oil, and gas production. If we approached our future energy needs according to the most prudent solutions for our precarious future—climate change, pollution, and health concerns—we could have a bright future for everyone. more...
  • If Your Grid Is Dirty If you are getting your power from a dirty electric grid, you are using dirty power. In other words, if your electric lamp is plugged into a system that is powered somewhere along your power line with a power generator that pollutes or emits greenhouse gases into our atmosphere (or otherwise harms our environment), your lamp is using dirty power. (Presently, we New Yorkers get 18% of our power from coal; 17% from hydroelectric, 1% wind, 1% biomass, 1% solar, 1% solid waste, 12% oil, 29% nuclear, and 22% natural gas.) more...
  • Gassing the News A good example of how dysfunctional our present media is on our environment, specifically on natural gas drilling, can be made by a point-by-point comparison of National Public Radio’s (NPR) three-part series on natural gas and recent coverage by ProPublica on the same subject: more...
  • Energy A Moral Iissue: As we turn on our lights, run our air conditioners, and charge our gadgets we do so mostly by burning coal. Coal pollutes and adds dramatically to manmade global warming. So, when we decide not to conserve electricity or not to allow a renewable energy source near our home, we condemn many to the hazards of mountain top removal. That wind turbine won’t be in our backyard, but that blasted mountain top which tailing will pollute that wants and disfigure the lands will be in somebody else’s backyard. Morally, though, we all live in the coal fields because we use the power of coal and won’t allow a better power source to run our lives. more...
  • Sacrificing Beauty In their efforts to preserve the aesthetics of their community under the looming threat of renewable energy, the folks over at Cleveland’s city council may be ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater.’ In their haste to get in front of the potential problems a new energy infrastructure might entail, they maybe be crippling our ability to keep our way of life. OK, that’s a bit strong, but let me go on. Ostensibly, Cleveland city council wants to make sure that their new wind farms don’t become a ‘visual nuisance’ or ‘unsafe.’ They think, and I quote the reporter: “…civic beauty should not be sacrificed on the altar of sustainability.” (April 15, 2009) Cleveland proposes ordinance to regulate aesthetics and safety of wind turbines - Arts - Cleveland.com In truth, they may be merely trying to stop a form of energy they just don’t like. more...

 

Environmental Health

These essays attempt to show how our health is related to our environmental health.

  • Is Our Local Environment Collapsing? One of the great environmental concepts of our time is the realization that environmental collapse can occur so slowly that you would hardly notice it. Unless, of course, you are looking for it. We should appreciate that in this fast-paced world, where mankind has mostly developed it to his liking, because we are more likely to forget (or not even notice) important milestones along the way to environmental degradation. If we allow only our picture of today’s environment to define our definition of a healthy environment, we could be missing important clues about the true direction our environmental is sliding. Saturday, I attended a talk by Dr. Jared Diamond at Monroe Community College about environmental collapse. Mostly, Diamond talked about the collapse of the Easter Island society after it endured for 800 years. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Long ago Easter Island had a thriving human culture and a vast forest. Then, the last tree was chopped down in 1880. Then, the culture collapsed to a population of one hundred people. Now, the Easter Island plight is a metaphor for the delicate fragility of Earth itself and how we might be destroying it piecemeal like the Easter Islanders. more...
  • Green Warning Signs Recently, we’ve noticed several signs that our environment is undergoing dramatic changes. Some of the most salient signs are the mercury-ridden fish in all of our streams, the collapse of the Copenhagen Climate talks, the release of methane gases from the Arctic Ocean, and a great resistance to greener transportation and energy. In that vein, the auto show I attended recently revealed little interest or efforts in adapting our vehicles to the reality that the automobile and its infrastructure greatly affect the health of our environment. I thought after all that talk about electric cars and fuel efficiency I’d see a new day at the shows. But there were the same old sexy cars and trucks—except now they cost more, still had lousy gas efficiency ratings, and have far more driver-distracting gadgets than ever before. more...
  • Reverting to a State of Green During these Extraordinary Times, where climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and our oceans are making human sustainability questionable, we must ask, how do we determine what constitutes Sustainability? But first, what is Sustainability and why is it so important? “For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of wellbeing, which in turn depends on the wellbeing of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources…” (Wikipedia). In other words, we have to get Sustainability right, or the system that keeps us alive breaks down. You have to be alive to have ‘wellbeing.’ We tend to assume that all those actively involved in monitoring our environment—official entities whose purpose is to monitor and maintain our environment, scientists, environmentalists, and the media—have at the very least a good idea of what a healthy environment looks like. Yet, I’m not so convinced that they do.  more...
  • The State of Rochester’s Environment 2009 Summing up the year in a variety of ways (best films, biggest stories, funniest incidents, most tragic, etc.) has become such a tradition in the media at the end of the year that we expect it. It’s fashionable. (Not that this sort of thing is necessary, for has anyone actually forgotten the rotten economy and all the awful wars?) So as long as we are counting our chickens this New Year anyways, why not have a wrap-up about something useful, like the state of our environment? This kind of rundown does matter. We won’t have any more ‘best films’ or ‘most awkward moments’ for the year if our environment crashes.  more...
  • Pandemic Flu, Getting Ready We want to applaud Monroe County's getting out in front on the possible pandemic issue in our area. It may turn out to be a mild flu season this years, but it would be irresponsible not to be prepared otherwise. Think seriously of using a hand sanitizer before you hand get near your face and check out all warnings, cautions, and information from this site: Public Health | Monroe County, NY Pandemic Flu | "Bird Flu. Pandemic Flu. These terms - confusing as they can be - are seemingly in the news daily.  more...
  • Healthy Debate Missing amidst the uproar on health care reform at the town meetings and the bug-eyed hysteria encouraged by our media is the link between our health care system and public health. Death panels, pulling the plug on our loved ones, socialism, deficits (mostly ignored during the war of choice), and even some cogent arguments that don’t embarrass us in the eyes of the world have been rung through the wringer that is called our media. It’s all as clear as mud, but politically the issues over health care reform are clear: defeating the present party on this ‘hot’ button issue offers new life to a party in search of a victory—any victory. more...
  • Global Health Don't forget you personally have a stake in the Climate Change Bill coming up: Climate Fight: EPA Sends Global Warming Finding to White House | Congress might be a long way from passing legislation to fight climate change, but the Obama administration appears one step closer to creating its own regime for controlling greenhouse gases. more...
  • Where's that pollution? A report (37 pages) that should be on your reading list this week is the new report by the International Joint Commission because it's about "programs to abate, control and prevent pollution from municipal sources entering the Great Lakes System.” The report’s object: The objective was to survey existing programs aimed at controlling surface-water pollution and to provide an overview of the current situation." more...
  • The Loss of Rochester’s Biodiversity The United Nations has declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. It is a wake-up call because we know that biodiversity around the world is crashing, which is why our age is sometime referred to as either the Holocene Extinction or the Sixth Great Extinction. However, unlike the other five mass extinction events (caused by asteroids, volcanoes, or global warming), this one is human caused. more...

 

Great Lakes

The Rochester Region is located at the Southern rim of Lake Ontario making the entire environment of our area dependant on the health of the Great Lakes.  

  • Where's that pollution? A report (37 pages) that should be on your reading list this week is the new report by the International Joint Commission because it's about "programs to abate, control and prevent pollution from municipal sources entering the Great Lakes System.” The report’s object: The objective was to survey existing programs aimed at controlling surface-water pollution and to provide an overview of the current situation." And, he current situation is not pretty.  Not only is one of the largest fresh water systems in the world, which is in and is our backyard, being compromised, the municipal sewage overflow, which is integral to our environmental health (a point that doesn’t usually get high prominence in mainstream media because they don’t know how to quantify it) is also affecting the fishing and tourist industries—which do get a high profile in our mainstream media. Anyway, if you don’t have time to read this report, you should see that your congress person does.     International Joint Commission - News room IJC Releases 14th Biennial Report WINDSOR, Ontario - The International Joint Commission today released its Fourteenth Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality. Under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (Article VII), the International Joint Commission reports to the federal, state and provincial governments biennially concerning its findings on their progress toward achieving the Agreement’s general and specific objectives. The Commission’s report, which is released to the public, is also to assess the effectiveness of programs and other measures undertaken pursuant to the Agreement
  • Green Isolationism Isolationists, most notably George Washington in his farewell address “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible,” believe that one’s territory can be contained, one’s sovereignty sustained by removing oneself from the rest. And while it was probably wise council for a young nation to stay out of ‘political connections’ as we built our new nation, isolationism of any kind really is not possible in today’s world. Isolation is only an illusion, especially in our environment. Connections are the rule. A sand storm in Africa gives Central American’s asthma. more...
  • Bad Beaches Beach conditions are not simply a natural phenomenon that is something we are born to suffer and beyond our control.  In most cases, it’s probably manmade pollution—from bad agricultural practices, storm water runoffs, industrial pollution, etc.  Our beaches get worse and like the boiling frog metaphor we accustom ourselves to worsening beaches over the years until public bathing with be a thing of the past. That isn’t simply sad, that’s us shooting ourselves in the foot by allowing ourselves to do this to our environment. - Get the Beach Report: NRDC: Testing the Waters 2009 "A Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches | more...
  • How are Great Lakes Fish Doing? Important Canadian report about eating fish in the Great Lakes--things are not improving: Up to the Gills: 2009 Update on Pollution in Great Lakes Fish "This report examines fish consumption advisories in the Great Lakes between 2005 and 2009. Up to the Gills finds that levels of toxic chemicals in Great Lakes fish are alarmingly high, and are not improving. The major chemical contaminants that cause consumption advisories for Great Lakes fish include mercury, PCBs, pesticides, dioxins and furans. Health effects of these chemicals include damage more...
  • Watching Fish A recent reading of local environmental news finds several interesting studies about the present state of our fish life. Things appear to be going well or not so well. For example, our Great Lakes fish populations are either doing swimmingly as noted in the New York Statewide Angler Survey 2007 - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation (although, given the frequent fish eating advisories, maybe that’s not entirely true) or not so swimmingly: “No sign of threat: Don't expect gov't to issue warning of dangerous fishing,” June 26, 09 NY Daily News). Another report about our regional fish population indicates that fish are not doing so well: Up to the Gills: 2009 Update on Pollution in Great Lakes Fish which states “that levels of toxic chemicals in Great Lakes fish are alarmingly high, and are not improving.” And, as if eating fish were not enough of a worry, even playing on beach sand (Study: Digging in sand can increase health problems -- Newsday.com ) may be problematical. Not to mention, “The State of the Lakes: Still a Bummer” - Healthy Lakes - Healthy Lives “A new report by the US and Canadian Environmental Agencies finds that the Great Lakes ecosystem continues on a rapid decline due to toxic pollution and invasive species and poor sewage management.” Learn more at State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference | Great Lakes | US EPA  more...
  • Global Warming and Great Lakes Among other environmental markers in our area, the Great Lakes will be affected by Climate Change in our area. Learning about the effects, instead of trying to ignore them (for this is science, not a radical belief system) will help us understand how we might curb the effects and learn to live with the potential changes: more...
  • Great lakes Pollution Health Link Study CDC As a follow up on the alleged “blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states” –from Great Lakes Danger Zones? The Center For Public Integrity Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest there’s a updated report out of Detroit: Great Lakes pollution, health link denied “No definitive link can be made between industrial pollution in the Great Lakes region and human health concerns, according to a revised version of a controversial federal study released Wednesday.”  more...
  • Great Lakes pollution, health link denied "Revised federal study contradicts draft report that found high rates of problems. Jim Lynch / The Detroit News No definitive link can be made between industrial pollution in the Great Lakes region and human health concerns, according to a revised version of a controversial federal study released Wednesday. The new version contradicts an early draft that was released in mid-March by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that showed areas around 13 former hazardous waste sites in Michigan had higher incidence rates for health problems, including infant mortality, low birth weight, premature birth, heart disease and several forms of cancer." FJR: So, Has this story gone away? Environmental Cover-up? This story highlights the importance of our environment, the role the Internet now plays in environmental media, and why we need critical information to assess the state of our environment. If it takes a whistle blower, another country, and a citizen public watch group for us to find out what damage our way of life is having on our support system, then we need to take charge of the information we need to have a sustainable society. We don’t need cover-ups, special interests, suppression of critical health information. We need to know, free and without cost, all that pertains to our getting enough information to make wise decisions about our environment.  more...

Green Business

Our Rochester area business are getting greener and why it matters

  • Green Jobs right out of the box  Green jobs are the new hot jobs. Opportunities for employment are opening up as a paradigm shift in the job market develops. You can get a sense of the dramatic shift in thinking about green jobs by reading how businesses are getting it: Amazon.com: Good to Green: Managing Business Risks and… Where recently only environmental engineer (janitor) opportunities populated the job boards, now you see: building retrofitting, renewable energy generation, alternative transportation , energy efficiency, green construction, energy trading, energy and carbon capture and storage, environment protection, agriculture and forestry, green manufacturing, recycling and waste reduction, and governmental and regulatory administration.   more...
  • Green Business As Usual Depending on your point of view, the Recession is either chugging along nicely (though cruelly) or it’s showing signs of a cascading collapse. Meaning, the banks we bailed out last year are thriving and many businesses are holding on, but job loss is dreadful. “The pace of layoffs has slowed sharply in recent months, but businesses still cut 85,000 net jobs in December, the Labor Department said.” (U.S. job loss report is blow to still-fragile recovery 1/09/10- washingtonpost.com) All these job losses make you wonder how we are going to recover our economy. Who is going to buy all that stuff from businesses if most of us are broke, can’t get loans, and are losing our houses? We could ask the rich (who horde a wildly disproportional share of the wealth in our country) to go out and spend more money. But, how many sneakers can even a rich person wear? more...
  • Our Environment and Our Jobs: What we don't know and what we want to know. What we know is that our environment and our economy (most critical our local economy) are in trouble. We know that the previous presidential administration was dismissive of our environmental problems and didn’t quite believe in anthropogenic climate change. We know that the present Obama administration ‘get’s it’ on our environment and intends to both right our environment and our economy.
  • Find that Green Job in Rochester, NY. First, Full Disclosure: I have a personal stake in finding a green job. I'm looking for a worthwhile part-time green job and I am willing to share anything I can find out about this until I get and green job and well after I find one. I want everyone who is out of a job to find a green job. Help yourself, help a friend, help our environment. So, find a Green Job in Rochester, NY area: Green Business Jobs Rochester, NY environmental jobs Rochester RochesterEnvironment.com - Green Jobs - This is merely a laundry list of possible job search sites that might lead you to a green job. I have not vetted these sites, except to check them for a green job (and I haven’t found one) so I cannot say if one is better than another.  more...
  • Green Jobs for the common folks? Lots of the federal stimulus money coming to our state. How much is going to green jobs to make our environment more sustainable? The figures are coming in and it’s clear, our government is inordinately fond of highways. more...
  • The Recovery | Green Jobs This just in from NYS. Good service to subscribe to if your interested in the road ahead for the formulation of green jobs. more...
  • Green Jobs – We’re Hearing Things... You can discuss all day long about what a ‘green job’ is and some have (Green Jobs - A GLOBE-Net Perspective), but mostly it’s an occupation that employs while making our way of life sustainable. Let’s not get too ivory tower about this notion as people are desperately looking for job now and, as a concept in progress, it matters little if today’s blue collar job, with a little retro-fitting, becomes tomorrow’s green job. Bigger changes to the job market are coming. more...
  • Green Jobs: Position Yourself! Much of the news and information about green jobs (still) seems like hype: Lots of cheerleading, but few actual green ‘shovel-ready’ work opportunities. As one who has been following this thread myself for some time, it does seem like a highly inflated exuberance over an employment market that has yet to be. But, I believe ‘seems’ is the operative word here. more...
  • Get Green Training for that Green Job Increasingly, there are more online resources for job training, teacher training for their students, and a variety of services for all sectors of the new job market. It gets complicated because there is no simple answer to the question: “Where are the green jobs in our area and how to I get them.”  more...
  • Green Grants Ok, there’s probably no grants specifically labeled ‘green.’ And admittedly, there’s not anything particularly new or fresh about the field of grant writing worth noting: It still involves long hours of research, tedious and meticulous fact checking, and (at least from the grant writer’s side) it’s a crap shoot. more...
  • Could we be the new Green Leaders? Could our region be leading the way to clean up Brownfields and creating sites for renewable Energy? Green Shoots from Brown Fields: Scientific American Uncle Sam looks to eliminate the biggest hurdle to expanding renewable energy--the need for suitable sites to place commercial-scale wind and solar farms--by reusing hundreds of old mines, landfills and industrial sites When the Bethlehem Steel mill in Lackawanna, N.Y., finally shut its doors for good eight years ago, it took away thousands of jobs and left behind a polluted and unsightly mess. Science News, Articles and Information | Scientific American  more...

 

Wildlife

Essays on why we must pay attention to our wildlife and how it still relates to our local environment

  • Bat News: One of the many reasons why I believe our present mainstream media are mostly dysfunctional concerns this story about a major decline in bats in our area.  Seems to the press that bats aren’t too popular and won’t bring in the big bucks the media wants.  So, connecting the dots about the major role bats play in our local environment (controlling insects, providing food for the predators we do like, etc.) and getting in the public’s face about this issue is not there.  We should care about this issue because it is a rapid change in our environment that may have grave consequences.  It has nothing to do about what the press might think the public cares about bats. more..
  • Sharing A Vision What we gain vicariously from the keen vision of an eagle or the ultrasonic sight of a bat is but a glimpse of our world through the superior senses of other animals. Our surroundings become something more when we take the time and have the imagination to see our environment through their eyes. From mimicking the ultraviolet landscape that a honeybee sees, we know that a field of flowers presents a much larger and more dynamic color spectrum than the one we see. Creatures like our pet dogs can smell a world that reveals the past in dropped spores and a present more aromatically vibrant and enlightening than the one we can detect. Even the air around us becomes more extraordinary when we look at it from the miniatures’ viewpoint. For a fly, our atmosphere it is more viscous than the one we know. It is like an ocean of water where the mosquitoes and bees above us swim more than fly. Speaking of the ocean, a whale more massive than any dinosaur that ever lived is an agile acrobat and sender of distant messages we cannot hear. more...
  • The Coyote in Situ: Coyotes are surviving well within and outside our suburbs here in New York State. They are like those other creatures that have 'learned' to exist amongst us intolerant humans and sustain themselves: the raccoon, crow, pigeon, sparrows and (of course) insects. But, none of those creatures are as misaligned as the coyote (except, perhaps, the crows in Auburn, New York) so as so to spark a return to the killing contests of old. more...
  • Are Coyotes Too Close - Or Are We? This article “Coyotes Too Close” 3/09/07 by WHEC-TV—Rochester, NY is representative of a badly constructed article by the major media in our area about environmental issues in the Rochester area. Foremost, it assumes that coyotes are bad, which only continues the irrational discussion (and thus policy) on the role of the coyote in our area. No other North American animal has more misinformation perpetuated about it than the Eastern Coyote. Just the sight of a coyote gives most people an adrenalin rush that makes them think they have to 'do something' about the presence of this animal. more...

 

Invasive Species Discussions

Join in discussions about what can and should be done about invasive species in our area.

  • The Asian Carp is coming! That’s the big environmental story around the Great Lakes region this week. Even the local press has caught the news appeal of a bizarre foreign species that might radically change the Great Lakes’ ecology. Because of its size and reproductive capacity, it may scarf up all those little plants and animals that live at the bottom of the five Great Lakes, which, the present ecology depends on. More intriguing to the media are those riveting photos of speeding boaters smacking into these large creatures, which freak every time they hear motorboat noise and leap into the air. I say ‘might’ because no one can prove that if the Asian Carp makes it way up the Mississippi and into the Great Lakes, they will proliferate and eat everything in site. Though, given their past rap sheet, it’s a good bet they will.  more...
  • Green Isolationism Isolationists, most notably George Washington in his farewell address “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible,” believe that one’s territory can be contained, one’s sovereignty sustained by removing oneself from the rest. And while it was probably wise council for a young nation to stay out of ‘political connections’ as we built our new nation, isolationism of any kind really is not possible in today’s world. Isolation is only an illusion, especially in our environment. Connections are the rule. A sand storm in Africa gives Central American’s asthma. more...
  • Solving Invasive Problems This story about VHS describes perfectly how difficult it is going to be to curb the problem of invasive species and disease in the Great Lakes because ultimately without public support all the regulations and laws in the world won’t stop this kind of disease spread. more...
  • Hope for a Messy World One would think that the days of a monolithic weltanschauung are over, where singular views of religion, culture, ideas, even prejudices, once ruled. Now, it’s not only unfashionable, but positively Neanderthal to be continually captivated by a single view of life. Makes you look stodgy. Yet, I tenaciously hold (despite many discussions to the contrary) that Nature rules. Moreover, it will do so even in Rochester. This seems to be an unpopular single-mindedness because in this Recession the “World is Flat” view means keep changing or you’ll get run over by new ideas, new economic models, and especially the Internet. The prevailing thinking seems to be: in this modern world, you had better streamline your operation. Better just paint yourself green and not go the whole hog. And, quite frankly, harping on environmental issues bores and annoys a lot of people—though given the wholesale consequences of environmental collapse (Think Easter Island in that chapter in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M. Diamond) not obsessing on our environment at this moment in history seems foolhardy. more...

 

Air Quality

The Rochester, NY region oftentimes scores lowly in the various air quality assessments.  Much can be done to improve the quality of our air.

  • Rochester’s failing air quality   Ho Hum.  The Rochester, NY area and Monroe County get another failing grade for ozone pollution, an ‘F’, from the American Lung Association’s “The State of the Air 2010 “.  Here’s the skinny: “The State of the Air 2010 shows that the air quality in many places has improved, but that over 175 million people—roughly 58 percent—still suffer pollution levels that are too often dangerous to breathe.   Unhealthy air remains a threat to the lives and health of millions of people in the United States, despite great progress. Even as the nation explores the complex challenges of global warming and energy, air pollution lingers as a widespread and dangerous reality.”    It’s a yawner for most folks as it goes on year after year and no one is getting worked up about it.  No marching in the streets.  It barely gets local news coverage.  Environmental news of this sort is like riding in a jet and feeling a sudden drop in altitude.  You look around and no one else seems to be paying any attention, so it must be OK.  Relax, take a deep breath.  more...
  • How are Those New Environmental Laws Doing?   If you have been following the Climate Change debates in Congress, you know well enough how hard it is to get any kind of environmental law passed. Besides dealing with economic hardships and compliance hurdles that have to be figured out when considering any new law, there are still large swaths of public officials who don’t even believe we have environmental problems, or looming catastrophes like Climate Change.  “Global Warming is just a hoax” is continually piped by the uninformed ideologues, despite all evidence to the contrary.      So, it’s no wonder that those who care about our environment and read the depressing litany of environmental disasters (oil spills, melting glaciers, water shortages) get excited when a few environmental laws do get passed.  Hey, they may be a drop in the bucket for a planet headed towards environmental collapse, but at least there is forward movement. more...
  • Did Spitzer Let us Down on Acid Rain Too? Years ago RochesterEnvironment.com had a page especially devoted to Acid Rain, as it does now with other Rochester-area Environmental Issues. Slowly, however, the Acid Rain issue faded away from our local news and disappeared altogether. I took down the page irrationally thinking that if our media thought this environmental problem was over, it must be over. What was I thinking? Just when it looked liked we could solve a great big environmental problem, this story reared its ugly head from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week:  more...
  • Sequestration, a Slam Dunk? Though building a new clean-coal power plant at the Huntley Station in the Town of Tonawanda (about an hour away by car) isn’t within the political purview of Monroe County, it is within our environmental sphere of influence. “Building a new clean-coal power plant at the site of the Huntley Station in the Town of Tonawanda would pump an estimated $133 million a year into the Erie County economy during its construction and a projected $94 million a year once the facility is running, a study to be released today found. (Nov 30, 07)” The Buffalo News: Business: Report lauds planned coal plant Meaning, that if does not go well with the large-scale use of Sequestration (a silver bullet solution hailed as the savior of coal power) we will probably reap some of the consequences here in Rochester, just as we do from the power plants out West. I believe that all that we do personally to curb Global Warming will be negated if we, or anyone within our planetary influence, burns large amounts of coal for energy. more...
  • Green Isolationism Isolationists, most notably George Washington in his farewell address “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible,” believe that one’s territory can be contained, one’s sovereignty sustained by removing oneself from the rest. And while it was probably wise council for a young nation to stay out of ‘political connections’ as we built our new nation, isolationism of any kind really is not possible in today’s world. Isolation is only an illusion, especially in our environment. Connections are the rule. A sand storm in Africa gives Central American’s asthma. more...

 

 

Recycling

These essays attempt to get at the concept of "Zero Waste" and why we shouldn't be creating any waste to have a healthy environment.

  • Are regulations the best way to stop e-waste?   Starting April 1, 2011, we will be less likely to see old TVs and other E-waste thrown out to the curb where they end up in landfills. There’s a new law in town: Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act - NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation “Beginning April 1, 2011, manufacturers of covered electronic equipment [those covered by the law] will be required to accept the following: computers, televisions (as well as cathode ray tubes), small scale servers, computer peripherals (monitors, electronic keyboards, electronic mice or similar pointing devices, facsimile machines, document scanners, printers), small electronic equipment (VCRs, digital video recorders, portable digital music players, DVD players, digital converter boxes, cable or satellite receivers, electronic or video game consoles)”. more...
  • Are we wasting food waste in the Rochester, NY region? Composting food waste instead of tossing it into a landfill is gaining momentum around the country as it offers a more sustainable treatment of this inevitable by-product. Note the New York Times devotes a full section on Compost News and a local entrepreneur thrives on making a business of it: “Vermi-Green capitalizes on happy worms” (6/06/2010 Democrat and Chronicle). Instead of letting food waste rot inside a plastic-lined landfill creating a modicum of energy by capturing some of the methane gas, a healthy compost program creates a nutrient-rich and toxin-free fertilizer—and business opportunities.  (June 13, 2010) Rochester News, Restaurants, more by Top Local Experts
  • Getting beyond waste Waste is a human conceit: If we cannot find an immediate value for something, we toss it somewhere, bury it, or burn it. However, in Nature there is no such thing as waste. Everything has a role or it would not exist. Hopefully, as we move into the future, we’ll get over the notion of waste. We’ll consider Zero Waste, where everything we produced gets thought about ‘from cradle to cradle,’ from the moment we use a resource to create a product to the moment we are done with the product. Then we won’t be trashing our resources or littering the planet. more...
  • Don’t Soil the Nest Even a bird knows not to soil its nest. This message seems lost on us, as our nest (our planet) is filling up with our trash. Instead of properly disposing of it (as any bird would), we are living, drinking, eating, planting, and breathing our unmentionable waste products. According to Learner.org, “Every year, the United States generates approximately 230 million tons of ‘trash’--about 4.6 pounds per person per day.” more...
  • New Bottle Bill Regulation: Like the new regulations or not, there will be less plastic bottles littering our state and less going into our landfills because this sort of legislation works. It works simply because people may throw away what they perceive as trash, but they won’t throw away money. Many people scour our city streets for deposit-able bottle to supplement or have an income at all. more...
  • Don't Curb that old TV with New Digital TV Signal Change A preventable environmental problem can be avoided when the new TV signal changes, if you recycle your new TV. But, you don’t have to buy a new TV, get a digital converter coupon and stay with what you’ve got. June 12 TV signals change to digital and for those still using the antenna, instead of cable and satellites, your going to have to do something. That’s if you still watch TV. more...
  • The Bottle Bill Ban Battle This heralding by the media of environmentalists unhappy with the latest ban on the deposit law just passed strikes me as an odd way to look at the halt in the NYS bottle bill that was supposed to go into effect on June 1st, and an odd way to see environmental issues in general by the media. Because, of course, shouldn’t everyone be miffed that the battle to remove discarded bottles from our streets, urban forests, our roadways (you-name-it, bottles are everywhere) via a popular measure (most New Yorkers are for this bottle bill) has been squelched by a judge, bottling companies, some politicians, grocery and convenience stores?  more...

 

Parks

These essays highlight the environmental aspects of our area's parks and why we should preserver their unique character--as the public's domain.