The Earth is getting warmer and fossil fuel-burning power plants have a lot to do with it. That is why those who study climate and government policies say alternative energy sources are essential in order to avoid massive upheavals. Given present technology, wind power, either from land-based or offshore windmills, is considered the best, fastest way to make a difference. 

Other nonpolluting options, such as nuclear and hydroelectric, are problematic. And in the Northeast, large-scale solar arrays are less commercially viable than elsewhere and have been met with bitter community backlash where proposed. There is no easy answer, but steps must be taken to slow the rapid rise of global temperature. This is why towns, such as East Hampton, and states, such as New York, have made commitments to renewable sources.

East Hampton Town officials, however, and in particular the town trustees, seem cowed by a small, but outspoken, number of residents who oppose Deepwater Wind’s proposed South Fork Wind Farm. The project calls for 15 generating turbines about 25 miles south of Point Judith, R.I., and 35 miles east of Montauk. A cable connecting the wind farm to the Long Island power grid is supposed to come ashore somewhere in East Hampton Town, passing either under the trustee beach at Wainscott or at one of two state-owned locations on Napeague. It would produce about 90 megawatts, said to be enough to supply electricity to about 50,000 houses, which is more than twice the total number of residential properties in the entire town.

In exchange for town easements, if the cable comes ashore in Wainscott, Deepwater Wind has promised deal-sweeteners, including paying to bury overhead utility lines on Beach Lane and Wainscott’s Main Street, $1.5 million for water-quality projects, and other substantial perks. Should the town continue to stonewall Deepwater, it could easily withdraw its offers and instead bring the cable across dry land in Napeague State Park or Promised Land, where no town permits are required. As a Deepwater report earlier this year said: Most local zoning laws are superseded by state utility regulations.

Regardless of whether the commercial fishing industry has misgivings about it, wind power appears here to stay. Turbines capable of generating 190 megawatts for Connecticut customers are in the planning stages for a site south of Martha’s Vineyard. Other states in the region are soliciting proposals for far larger projects, one for up to 1,100 megawatts. (The Millstone Nuclear Power Station, by comparison, produces about 2,000 megawatts, which powers about two million houses.)

It is difficult to support the position that wind power is not a necessary component of a cleaner-energy future. Officials, and in particular the town trustees, must recognize their limited say, and work with Deepwater Wind rather than against it.

New York City could soon ban the sale of plastic water bottles in parks, beaches, and public golf courses to cut down on trash. Two cities, San Francisco and Concord, Mass., already have banned them, according to The New York Times, and are promoting the use of refillable bottles by residents and visitors. Given the unsanitary overflow of garbage receptacles at many South Fork beaches during the summer, the time apparently has come for a similar ban here.

On Earth Day weekend, the sheer number of plastic water bottles collected, at Montauk Point in one example, was stunning. Many had been capped and apparently thrown still partially filled into the brush along the paths, while others were carried in on the surf. Beer bottles were in the brush, too,  alcohol-addled jerks being what they are. But what of the thinking of some ostensibly healthy person who drinks half a Poland Spring then heaves it into the brush? It is much the same at other cleanups; volunteers in Greenport in February, for example, picked up more than 660 plastic water bottles.

East Hampton Village officials last week enacted a retail prohibition on foam takeout containers. This is a positive step, even though few village eateries package goods in foam. A more effective measure would be for the village to eliminate the sale of water in plastic bottles at its Chowder Bowl concession at Main Beach. Similarly, East Hampton Town might ban their sale at its beaches and recreational facilities. 

“But what will the people drink?” one might ask. In the cities that have banned plastic water bottles, officials have made fountains and reusable-container filling stations available. Reports are that people adjust quickly. On the other hand, bowing to industry pressure, the Trump administration last year reversed a six-year-old ban on the sale of plastic water bottles in national parks, claiming a need to “expand hydration options for recreationalists.” 

In truth, most of us are adaptable; this was underscored in a recent announcement about how quickly habits changed following a Suffolk County prohibition on disposable shopping bags. Montauk School students took on plastic drinking straws not too long ago and got several restaurants and takeout places to pledge to provide straws only upon request or switch to paper ones. In addition, Suffolk legislators are now thinking about limiting plastic cutlery and straws across the county.

If for no other reason than helping keep public spaces clean, a plastic water bottle ban makes sense, particularly since very few, if any, are recycled. East Hampton Town has struggled historically to keep up with the volume of garbage put in its beach trash cans during the summer, adding extra crews to make evening pickups at significant expense. 

Cutting down the number of these bottles would reduce the volume of waste the town has to haul away, and would, in and of itself, be a significant step toward a greener East Hampton. Vendors might consider selling water or other drinks to beachgoers in their own branded, reusable containers to make up for any financial loss. If Washington is going to head in the wrong direction on litter and the energy-wasting manufacturing of plastic, at least local governments, businesses, and consumers can — and should — battle back on their own turf.

Central to the new East Hampton Town hamlet studies are recommendations about one of the greatest challenges: how to increase the supply of houses and apartments that the town’s working people and other residents can afford. Meanwhile, a proposal to pay for other answers to the housing shortage via an additional real-estate transfer tax has been put forward at the state level by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

East Hampton Town has been a leader among local governments making an attempt to solve a decades-long housing imbalance. Now, as real-estate prices rise — and much of the lower-end housing rental market is sucked up by short-term visitors using online booking agencies — the shortage has become severe. 

The issue ripples across the local economy as businesses may not be able to pay their employees enough to find adequate places to stay. In East Hampton Town, Democratic board majorities have tried with some success to meet the need, as has an independent housing authority. The town also has sought to create incentives for private property owners to add apartments or convert outbuildings into code-compliant rental units, subject to strict limits. But the need remains.

Enter the authors of the new hamlet plans, who seem to have tried to consider work-force residents at every juncture. In Wainscott, for example, new and renovated commercial buildings would ideally have second-floor apartments. Also, the sand mine and cement plant north of Montauk Highway would be home to a new combination of single-family houses, commercial-industrial uses, and a park. An affordable housing district could be on a portion of the sand mine site, as well as at the sand pit on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.

Upgrades to an ad hoc affordable housing area on North Main Street in East Hampton could be planned, provided steps were taken to deal with the wastewater flow that increased residential density would create. At the former Stern’s store on Pantigo Road, housing could be added in a mixed-use development. Apartments also could be encouraged above existing businesses along Amagansett’s Main Street.

For Montauk, the plan’s authors have suggested new solutions for both year-round and seasonal workers, something many businesses would benefit from. Among these are more second-floor apartments, promoting existing rules that allow apartments on residential lots, and “small house” and other alternative kinds of semipermanent dwellings, especially in the dock area. Another idea is for a seasonal housing district in which residences in existing commercial districts might be allowed to double the town occupancy limit of up to four unrelated adults to a maximum of eight with no more than two per bedroom. All of these would necessarily be tied to the town’s ongoing study of new wastewater treatment options.

Mr. Thiele’s proposal might just be the  fuel needed to help make the town planners’ vision become reality. In a bill he wrote, a surcharge on high-end real estate transactions would bring in an estimated $15 million, which would be made available as loans to first-time homebuyers, repayable upon the sale of the house. If approved in the State Legislature, the program would not go into effect until it was okayed in a local referendum.

The need is obvious as many workers and young families are faced with the difficult choice of whether to move away. Supply could be increased through the programs outlined in the new town plan. The means to pull it all together for new homebuyers could be found in Mr. Thiele’s bill. In all, this is an optimistic moment for solving the housing crisis in East Hampton and elsewhere on the East End.

The East Hampton Town Trustees have come dangerously close in recent months to becoming entirely co-opted by the anti-wind power crowd. This has led them to inappropriately take on a role on the South Fork Wind Farm project over which they have minimal say and which runs the risk of their otherwise looking past their specific responsibilities.

The trustees’ intentions came from the right place; first and foremost they see themselves as upholders of traditional, mostly commercial fishing activities. This is, of course, a historical simplification, as their purview is to serve as caretakers of certain common lands and natural resources for all East Hampton residents. 

Certainly there are concerns about the placement of the Deepwater Wind company’s turbines and whether a power cable might interfere with dragger nets and other gear, but the trustees are getting very close to two-layer tinfoil hat territory in trying to extort unrelated high-dollar concessions from the company in exchange for permission to route the cable under the beach at Wainscott. The company has said that if the trustees make things too difficult it simply will seek to bring the line ashore on state property or on town land outside trustee jurisdiction. 

Alarming, too, is the fact that the trustees have become so tied in knots on this that they held an illegal closed-door session to go over their response, fearing they might be sued. The state open meetings law does not allow for so-called executive sessions, from which the public is excluded, on only a vague anxiety that maybe there could be, might be, litigation. If that were the case, no government business would ever get done in public. 

If anything, the trustees should be trying to make alternative energy easier, not more difficult. As stewards of much of the town’s critical wetlands, they should be concerned about the effect of climate change on sea level rise and shorelines, as well as marine acidification, both linked to soaring carbon dioxide emissions. Wind power is an essential part of a more climate-sensitive future, and the trustees should understand this. There also is an implicit responsibility to the rest of earth’s inhabitants; East Hampton should be generous enough to try to make even an incremental difference on a global scale. The trustees can and should be part of that.

There is no question that the Springs School needs more space. The question is whether voters will approve a nearly $17 million bond to pay for expansion. They should. 

Central to the proposal is the addition of classroom and support space, improved play and sports fields, and a state-of-the-art septic upgrade. The last aspect of the work is not something to overlook; the school’s wastewater system has been on the verge of complete failure for some time and is thought to be a large contributor to pollution in nearby Accabonac Harbor.

But it is the kids who are most important here. At present, the school’s superintendent says the building is appropriate for about 340 students; 2017-18 enrollment was 736 students. Even on a cursory visit to the school the inadequacies were apparent, with a warren of classrooms, crowded halls and multipurpose spaces, and poor air circulation. A portion of the money for the estimated $22 million project would come from a reserve fund. 

As a bedroom community for a good part of the East End work force, Springs has had to shoulder an unfair burden in paying to educate its young people, while other districts, such as Amagansett, Wainscott, and Sagaponack, enjoy small class sizes and taxes that are low by comparison. Correcting such an outrageous imbalance is an urgent moral challenge for which state leadership is needed, but that is a question for another day. Right now, educating Springs’s kids in the best setting possible is the priority.   

East Hampton Town Hall might well be built on a foundation of forgotten studies. But much of what was presented this week in a series of hamlet study proposals has the makings of substantial change for the better. Ideas ranged from improving traffic patterns to providing more affordable housing, along with a blockbuster: relocating a considerable portion of commercial development in Montauk that is threatened by erosion.

A redesigned downtown in Montauk would shift density away from the ocean shoreline and from the narrow flood zone at Fort Pond where a grocery store and 7-Eleven are today. The so-called front row of motels and residences would be removed and rebuilt to modern flood-proof standards behind a restored beach and natural-appearing dunes. In a future phase, assuming that sea level continues to rise, yet more structures would be eliminated and Montauk Highway elevated across a wetland where, from time to time, Fort Pond would breach and open to the ocean. 

Elsewhere in Montauk, a proposal is for vulnerable houses along West Lake Drive to be removed from the 100-year-flood zone. Near the harbor inlet, a section of road would be removed, with dune restoration and additional relocation of structures away from Block Island Sound.

This is headline-grabbing stuff. For a long time, people who watch the coast have said that Montauk needed serious attention. Behind the scenes, a town coastal resiliency committee has been working on plans that are expected to dovetail with the hamlet studies. And yet, given how massive the redesign of much of Montauk would be, its effect on town residents would be minimal.

Much more important for those in other parts of town are prescriptions for affordable housing and how people get around. These include more second-floor apartments, as well as new work force houses adjacent to commercial areas. Redevelopment of two sand mines, one on Springs-Fireplace Road, the other in Wainscott, would provide so-called mixed-use areas, houses and apartments in one portion, parkland in another, and businesses in another. The property at the former Stern’s department store on Pantigo Road would be redesigned this way. The land adjacent to the Amagansett I.G.A. might have additional shops as well as apartments.

Throughout the studies is a commitment to the environment. For example, no new initiative for sewage treatment should encourage development. Effort is to be made to provide more trails and link them together, along with a waterfront route at Three Mile Harbor. Community character is stressed, too, with a commitment to recognizing and preserving vernacular architecture and streetscapes. Work-truck parking, which has been a sore point in some parts of town, could be provided in designated locations.

Over all, there is a lot to digest in these hamlet plans, and surely a great deal of debate to follow, but they appear to be a worthy start in which no one has tried to avoid even the most difficult questions.

Last month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began the work of raising the railway tracks above the much-battered trestles at North Main Street and Accabonac Road in East Hampton Village. For neighbors Down Hook, it has become something of a sport to wager when the next overambitious driver will wedge a too-tall truck under the bridge. This has its humorous side, it’s true, but the potential damage to the tracks and trestles from repeated strikes by drivers who ignore warning signs isn’t really a laughing matter. Readers might recall one of the more dramatic truck-versus-trestle crashes, in 2014, when a driver who had begun work only the day before behind the wheel of a garbage truck hit the underpass so hard it shifted the Long Island Rail Road tracks.

The project, which began last week with the clearing of trees and underbrush from the south side of the embankment, revealing the bare embankment in all its midwinter ugliness, will cost nearly $20 million and take some 18 months.

It isn’t entirely clear how much higher the actual trains chugging through town will ride once all is said and done, but, according to M.T.A. engineers who spoke at a meeting of the village board in the fall, the distance from road asphalt to underside of underpass — the space to be driven through — will increase to 14 feet from a current height of about 10 or 11 feet.

There isn’t much to be done once the heavy equipment rolls out on an M.T.A. project like this, but it seems that the village board is still in negotiations with the M.T.A. on certain aspects of its aesthetic impact on what is, in essence, the visual centerpiece of the business district: Hook Hill, which is so central to the image of East Hampton that it appears on the official village seal. How will the planned ground-to-track-level wall of shaped concrete blocks — a wall that will replace the tree-covered embankment — look as a visual frame for the windmill? Should the concrete “stones” be tinted brown or green? As it is, on clear days you can already see Dump Mountain in the distance behind the windmill, if you are passing near Citarella. 

M.T.A., we’re watching you.

The East Hampton Town senior citizens center on Springs-Fireplace Road is in need of an upgrade. However, a plan revealed last week may not be the solution.

Discussion for an improved senior citizens center has been perennial in Town Hall. Programs now are run in what was once a roadside bar and grill, with only modest improvements and a supposedly temporary trailer office outside for extra workspace. It is far from ideal. 

An idea to repurpose the former Child Development Center of the Hamptons school on Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton as a new senior citizens hub was rejected about a year ago, mostly for reasons of cost. Instead, a little over a year ago, the town board settled on a Long Island engineering firm to oversee a totally new center on the existing site.

The replacement is big: maybe too big. At two stories, the building would have more than 18,000 square feet of floor space, including a huge lunchroom. The East Hampton Food Pantry would be upstairs, with a conveyor belt to bring in supplies. The parking lot would have room for 116 cars, almost double the current capacity. Cost estimates vary, but are somewhere in the $5.2 million range. 

According to figures provided by the town’s Human Services Department, about 330 people had meals at the Springs-Fireplace Road center in 2015. In addition, residents came to the center for social activities and counseling. The town runs a free transportation program for older people from the site as well. These are worthy services, but only a fraction of the estimated over-65 population here seems to participate. Furthermore, whether the proposed building has been scaled correctly for future needs and is the best it can be aesthetically, is not quite clear.

A third of the East Hampton Town population is in the aging baby-boom generation or older, and officials are aware that the need for services will increase. But how the aging population’s needs may differ from those of earlier generations is the subject of debate. The National Council on Aging, in a recent report, cautioned that older adults have more choices and expectations than ever before and that offerings for them will have to adapt. 

Smaller, decentralized programs might be a better alternative than putting almost all the town’s resources for older residents in a single location, one that creates its own transportation demands. Meanwhile, almost around the corner, plans are afoot for a massive medical center, further cramming essential services into a small geographical area.

  A better approach is already in evidence farther east, where the town is involved in an exciting addition to the Montauk Playhouse that will include two swimming pools and performance and meeting spaces. This appears to be more the kind of facility the new aged may want, as opposed to the generic, hulking senior citizens center being envisioned for Springs-Fireplace Road. 

If the town is going to spend $5 million or more on something, it had better be sure that it is getting the best value for taxpayers’ money and the best possible facility. What has been proposed is big and impressive. A little more analysis to make sure a new center is the right answer is essential.

The red-winged blackbirds returned to Cranberry Hole Road this week, announcing themselves by their rusty, spring-sounding calls from hiding places among the scrub. It seems far too soon.

For years, I have taken note of the emergence of spring peeper frogs and the arrival of osprey, writing the date I first notice them each year on the wall next to the basement stairs. Over time, the older markings have become faded, so even with a bright light and my reading glasses, they are difficult to make out. One of these days I intend to copy the dates onto something more permanent before they whisp away completely.

Keeping track of nature’s seasonal comings and goings is a way of trying to slow if not stop time, I think. As we get older, we are reassured that the cycles go on, changing subtly from year to year maybe, but plowing ahead indifferent to us. 

Each day on the beach in front of the house, through the winter, gulls and shorebirds walk, heads down, looking for something to eat. In the brambles, cardinals lurk, picking at hard berries as gaudily colored as they. The red-wings strip seed heads from the phragmites and wait for insect larvae that will begin to hatch in a couple of weeks. Wild turkeys strut, the males competing with their tall brown and gold fans for a chance at the hens’ affections. 

The forecasters say that a storm is coming by the weekend, a northeaster. The red-wings, here already and getting a jump on the season, will just hunker down in the swamp, with instinctual surety that they have not returned a minute too soon.

Those who have handled a semiautomatic rifle of the sort used in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shootings on Feb. 14 know that these are not ordinary weapons. Their power is unmistakable; an errant shot striking a small tree will go through that tree and the one behind that, and so on. A shot striking a human body will result in a cascading wave of force, crushing tissue and making recovery difficult for anyone who manages to survive the instant, massive bleeding or organ damage.

Outside of law enforcement and military use, these guns have no purpose during peacetime, other than to satisfy the puerile thrill of owning and shooting them and, often, posting pictures of oneself displaying them on social media. Target shooting can be accomplished with far less potentially lethal weaponry and there are better options for hunting and for self-defense, if that is ever really a necessity. 

Gun lobby activists and the politicians they support have tried to shift the discussion following the mass shootings to questions about mental health and, in the case of schools, arming teachers, coaches, administrators, and support staff. This is a deliberate smokescreen put up to obscure the real issue: There are too many guns in the United States, and those capable of killing dozens of people in a matter of minutes are scarcely regulated, if at all. A similar smokescreen has been raised about changing the age at which someone can buy a gun. Arguing that because Americans can be sent to war at 18 they should be able to handle an automatic weapon at home is a false equivalent.

In the military, training comes first, then 18-year-olds are armed for the precise reason that they may someday be asked to kill other human beings — under supervision and on the field of battle. To use military service as justification for allowing the same powerful guns among an untrained civilian population is wrong. Then, too, arguing about whether people under 21 should be allowed to possess assault rifles without even the same regulation imposed on pistol owners in most states misses the point that high-powered weapons must, at a minimum, be strongly regulated. 

Like the debate about whether teachers and school personnel should be armed, the question of what is an appropriate age to be able to buy a gun obscures the real problem — that there are too many guns in this country and they are too easy to obtain.

The sale and possession of semiautomatic rifles should immediately be regulated at least as tightly as pistol ownership in the most restrictive states, such as New York, if not banned altogether. Lives are at risk. The longer America delays meaningful and effective gun control, the more killing there will be. No arming of teachers or age limit on who may buy dangerous firearms will change that.