Column by Mike Zagata for October 12, 2018 Natural-Gas Issue Is A Ruse; Real Intention Is No Growth Apparently something happened to The Professor during her youth to cause her to come forward during the confirmation process for The Supreme Court Justice, but we’ll never know for sure exactly what happened, nor will we know who was responsible. That wasn’t the intended outcome of the public spectacle we’ve been subjected to. The intended outcome was to delay the confirmation process…
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Columns - Page 96
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, October 5, 2018. Natural Gas Is A Bad Investment It’s obvious we have to get off fossil fuels, yet we keep hearing that fossil fuels – natural gas in particular – are essential to local economic growth. While “solar and wind would be a viable source for electric,” Otsego Now CEO Jody Zakrevsky wrote in The Freemans Journal & Hometown Oneonta in the Aug. 30-31 editions, “it (the solar and wind source) does not currently provide…
Column by Mike Zagata, September 28, 2018 New York Not So Great Lately, Either ‘America was never that great.” That’s an amazing quote from a man who’s had nothing but opportunity his entire life. Yes, he’s made the most of it, but that’s not the point. The point is that, because America was great, he had the opportunity to succeed. Before moving to the point of this article, I thought it might be useful to look at the media via…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, Friday, September 21, 2018 Let’s Build On Sustainable Assets, Not Unsustainable Liabilities Otsego County needs a new direction for energy and economic development. An important step to that end was taken last week when the county board’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee endorsed the idea of setting up an energy and economic development task force. Kudos to them! A county-wide task force would give us two things we don’t have now: long-term economic planning and a wide range…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, September 7, 2018 THE GOAL: ECONOMIC, POLITICAL FREEDOM Populism As American As Apple Pie Ever since the last presidential election the words “populist” and “populism” have been widely bandied about, mostly as pejorative terms. A populist politician, we often hear, is a demagogue who wins votes by inflaming the resentments and emotions of ordinary people at the expense of rational thought. Those who fall prey to populism are no more to be trusted, critics suggest, than…
Column by Mike Zagata, August 31, 2018 Rising To The Fly On Natural Gas One of the main reasons that local brook trout don’t get very big is that they tend to rise to and take the first dry fly that is drifted over them. During my professional career, I have avoided “rising to the fly,” but my fellow columnist, Adrian Kuzminski, in his Aug. 23-24, 2018 article, floated one that was just too tempting. He was commenting on my…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, August 24, 2018 Let’s Take Control Of Our Energy Future Recently, nearly 100 people crowded the Oneonta Town Hall to respond to a report by Otsego Now head, Jody Zakrevsky, about the controversial gas decompression station proposed for Oneonta. The backlash was overwhelming. A long series of speakers unanimously condemned the project and demanded instead a full-scale effort to transition to renewables as soon as possible. As the speakers pointed out, a myriad of solutions exist…
Column by Mike Zagata for August 17, 2018 Exotic? Natural Gas As Common As … Manure It’s amazing that the natural gas opponents all talk about wanting to protect the environment by moving from natural gas to “renewables.” Is it that they are misinformed or have an agenda? It’s difficult to tell, but here’s what the science tells us. Natural gas, or methane, is naturally occurring. It is emitted from volcanoes, manure piles and humans. It is the cleanest burning…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski for August 10, 2018 … AND COUNTY CAN TAKE LEAD Natural Gas, No! Renewables, Yes! It’s recently been reported that Otsego Now, the economic development arm of Otsego county, is proposing a natural gas decompression station in Oneonta to help alleviate energy shortages that have plagued some businesses and institutions in the city. Otsego Now is applying for a $3 million grant to help facilitate the project, which is estimated to cost $17 million. Currently, SUNY…
Column by Mike Zagata, August 3, 2018 What Can Be Done About Deer Overpopulation? Most of us enjoy watching and/or hunting deer. They seem harmless enough – that is, until one runs in front of your shiny new car. Many people enjoy feeding deers with deer feeders you can learn more about at places similar to feedthatgame.com which is great if you have the population of deer under control. However, the 650,000 or so forest landowners in the state may…