Fighting For ‘Purity’ Always Preferable To The Alternatives To the Editor: Mike Zagata’s (Jan. 10) “Renewable’s Not Ready To Replace Gas” is a prime example of “Reductio ad Absurdum”…treating a vital but complex issue as if it were all or nothing. Until we reach heaven, nothing is 100-percent pure, and informed advocates of wind, tide, or solar power don’t say they are. But compared to fossil fuels, they are overwhelmingly less toxic. Pitting “Climate Change” in quotes, as Trump also does,…
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Letters Renewables, Maybe Not Answer Today, Are Wave Of The Future To the Editor: Mike Zagata’s column of Jan. 10-11 expresses perspectives that are fast becoming archaic. To suggest renewables aren’t ready to replace gas is short-sighted, parochial and myopic. Of course, the 5,000 flights a day that circle the earth can’t by powered by green energy, but that’s exactly the point. Conserving them now will insure availability later. The gas and oil reserves will have to yield some day…
Editorial for November 9, 2018 ‘Knowledge’ Is Our Future This week’s Tom Morgan column on the facing page, and former DEC Commissioner Mike Zagata’s column last week capture the Upstate dilemma: Upstate is rebounding more slowly than any other area of the country. First, let’s look at local bright spots. • Custom Electronics in Oneonta is planning a futuristic 250-job production line making self-recharging batteries. Andela Products, the Richfield Springs glass recycler, is likewise looking to expand. And Corning’s Oneonta…
Editorial for September 28, 2018 Balance Today’s Energy Needs, Tomorrow’s Energy Wishes It’s a great idea. In a column at the end of August, Adrian Kuzminski – citing the Tompkins County Energy Roadmap, completed in March – wrote, “Let me suggest … that the Otsego County Board of Representatives, in a bi-partisan spirit, is the logical authority to establish an Otsego Energy Task Force. A large, diverse umbrella group is far more likely to develop a comprehensive, viable energy strategy…
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…
HAPPENIN’ OTSEGO for Saturday, Oct. 29 World Series Viewing Party in the Baseball Hall of Fame! NATIONAL CAT DAY HALL OF FAME – 7:30 p.m. Baseball World Series Gala. Adults $10, Child $5. Info, (607) 547-0397, http://baseballhall.org/events/world-series-gala-16?date=0ART RECEPTION – 5-7 p.m. Exhibition opening “Ceramics & Photo Journals: Capturing the Process.” Cherry Branch Gallery, 25 Main St, Cherry Valley. For more information visit their website at http://cherrybranchgallery.com/ or call (607)264-9530.…
Congressman Gibson Reports ‘Productive Day In Oneonta’…
New Pipeline Won’t Cure Otsego County’s Poverty Editor’s Note: Kate O’Donnell, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology at Hartwick College. This is reprinted from this week’s Hometown Oneonta & Freeman’s Journal editorial page. By KATHERINE O’DONNELL Rural poverty is widespread and persistent in the U.S. Rural labor options, mass centralized industrialization, and urbanization cause rural people, usually the young, to migrate to urban areas for better paying jobs in more diverse labor sectors. These structural forces have produced outmigration from…
Life Without Fossil Fuels? Careful What You Wish For Editor’s Note: Mike Zagata, Ph.D., who lives in Davenport, is a former commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation. This is reprinted from this week’s Free By MIKE ZAGATA There is virtual agreement that we must move away from fossil fuels to energy sources that are renewable. First, fossil fuels are non-renewable, i.e. at some point we will run out of them. Second, there are scientists and politicians that believe…
Oneonta Town, City Should Join In Regional Water Authority The Oneonta Town Board is energetically seeking to make a historic mistake that will have increasingly negative impacts on Greater Oneonta for decades to come. Southside neighbors are being asked to approve a water district that would allow construction of a water plant in Emmons’ Fortin Park. Let’s hope, for their good and that of the whole, that they say no. Right now, downtown Oneonta, step by step, is coming back.…