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These essays are an attempt to
understand our Rochester-area environment in the world
environmental context.
You can always comment on these essays
by contacting me
Frank J. Regan or You can respond
to this and essays on
Environmental Thoughts
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Great Lakes Diversion
(December 2007)
Affordable
and clean water is one of the many reasons why Rochester, NY is a
great place to live--as you already know. But, the droughts going
on in the South and West should be of particular concern to
Rochestarians who have a quarter of the world's fresh water next
door. Because the effects are more dramatic in other places and
because the effects here of the drought do not seem to impact most
of us here in the Northeast immediately this story just doesn’t get
its do. It should. |
Sequestration a
Slam Dunk? (January 2008) 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. |
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A
Reasonable Assumption (December 22, 2007)
A decade and a half ago, I unscientifically began to reason that
since the Industrial Revolution, when the churning of industry and
the transportation of billions from fossil-fuels, the cutting down
of billions of trees, the paving of billions of miles of asphalt
roads, and the billowing billions of tons of industrial waste into
the air, there would be consequences. |
Watching for Local Signs of Climate Change
(December 24, 2007)
This is probably a non-story for
environmental news, but something I’m going to be watching over the
years. One of the many predictions about how Global Warming
will affect the Northeast is a change in some flora of our area,
which will affect some business, and the production of maple syrup
may be one of those. |
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Recycling Redux
(December 2007)
Sometimes the greatest innovations have already been done.
Recycling, extracting our junk into resources is probably one of the
greatest hopes for curbing our environmental problems. No more
landfills, no more toxins leaching into our ground and water, no
more exporting toxic materials to the developing countries, no more
waste--period. |
Media Priorities (December 2007)
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 agreement with the rest of the
world on curbing Global Warming gases. |
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Kill
Your TV! (Nov 22, 07) 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! |
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Now, there’s moose (September, 2007)
Lately, I’ve noticed in the Rochester-area environmental news that
there are increasingly more stories about sightings of coyotes,
bears, mountain lions, and now moose. |
Conducting Business as if the
Environment Didn’t Matter (October 2, 2007) The main news about Bee Colony
Collapse Disorder is that there is no simple answer. More is that it maybe just
a single straw in world of lots of causes. |
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Harder and harder to ignore
(September 15, 2007) - There seems to be more reports about
environmental degradation lately than you can shake a stick at: Are the Greenies
on the rise, chicken-littling the climate change debate to death? I don’t think
so. |
The Red List is Out – Again
(September 18, 2007)
What is the Red List? “…the world’s most authoritative
assessment of the Earth’s plants and animals, acts as a wake up call on the
global extinction crisis.” |
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I’m Going to
Be Rich! (after reading
The Canadian Press: APEC leaders agree to broad 'aspirational
goal' on climate change SYDNEY, Australia (CP) —
Leaders of some of the world's fastest-growing economies
are on track toward a "sensible" international agreement
to curb climate change, Australian Prime Minister John
Howard announced Saturday.") (September 08, 2007)
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Weighing Renewable
Energy Options (September 12, 07) I wonder how we can
resolve the conundrum that while renewable energy can help
resolve the world-wide accumulation of manmade global warming
gases, few want wind farms near them. Most people like the idea
of windmills added to our power grid, providing us with a
non-polluting energy source--until it threatens their area. |
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Coal in Rochester's Future
(August 09, 07) Seeing how Rochester’s future energy
needs will probably be met (without much fanfare or
debate) by coal. |
We Should Be
Shocked. (August 17, 2007) Good science demands that the
environment be broken up into ‘specialized’ areas that can be
assessed accurately and made testable. |
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Good Example
of Good Media on Our Environment (July 17,
2007) One of the environmental issues we have not heard
much about this year highlights the importance of how
the environment is portrayed in the media. |
Climate
change will hit home—it’s only a matter of how hard. (July
29, 2007) The latest in climate forecasts for our region,
NEW YORK is the report "Northeast
Climate Impacts Assessment" by
Union of Concerned Scientists.
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A Rational Approach to Climate Change
monitoring -You cannot even
attempt to solve Climate Change due to man-made greed
house gases if you don’t even know who is emitting green
house gases and who is not. |
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Rochester Bee Problem
It’s been news around the country for awhile now, but
even though New York State and Rochester depend heavily
on pollinating bees our major media has been slow on
this story. |
No
Hasty and Hidden Energy Decisions -
(June 14, 07) Before anyone should praise the dynamic changes at
Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) on developing our area’s energy
future, we should know the facts and the objectives. |
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Environmentalists as Chicken Little
-- ( March 22, 2007) Remember when the
Zebra Mussel problem in our area was just a
twinkling in the eyes of the environmental Chicken
Littles'? |
Environmental News, Wouldn’t It Be Nice?
(March 23, 2007) (March 23, 2007)
Wouldn’t it be nice if Rochester, like some other cities
in the US had a separate section in their newspaper, or
other media, for just Environmental News?
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Save our Environment, Save the Net
Act now to continue to get complete
and unbiased environmental information - If you don't
know about this developing issue on the Internet, Net
Neutrality, it might seem at first like some obscure
plea for your hard earned dollars.
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Proprietary
Information? - Information in
today’s world is a commodity; something bought
and sold like land, cars, or toys in a toy
store. It is an important commodity because
it can make or break a person or an
organization.
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Local Media Doing their Job on Our
Environment?
Coming up
with a policy or an evaluation on the state of one's
environment is impossible without data.
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The
Media Really Does Matter The
media, that is, the way you get information about our
environment and who you get it from really does matter. |
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Wikia Environmental Project
-This
collaborative project on the environment seems to me one of the
most important and potentially successful Wikia projects since
Wikipedia. |
Tipping
Point as Cliché - In some minds Global
Warming may augur a boon for real estate not previously longed
for: the tundra, for example, that may take on the aspect of
idyllic parcels with lawns for bold entrepreneurs. |
