A sign boasting of East Hampton Town’s goal of meeting all of its electricity needs with renewable sources by 2020, which was carried by an activist during Sunday’s climate march in New York City, drew lots of attention. And well it should have; moving away from fossil fuels is essential if human-induced global warming is to be slowed within our lifetimes. It is terrific that a local resolution to do better, albeit one with limited direct effect, could reach beyond East Hampton’s borders and, perhaps, influence other communities to take their own steps toward a positive power future.

By dint of its precarious location perched on the edge of the sea on nearly all sides, East Hampton and the rest of the East End should be at the forefront of preparing for one of the predicted effects of climate change — a rapidly rising ocean. This, it must be conceded, is far more difficult to achieve than declaring an electricity-supply goal, no matter how laudable that may be. Science’s best predictions suggest that global sea level will rise by two feet by the end of the century. However, regional variations due to geography, ocean circulation, and other factors mean that places like New York City and the East End may see even more ominous impacts.

Already, East Hampton Town officials, with help from the Nature Conservancy and the federal government, are beginning to acknowledge the scale of the risk by preparing to buy out property owners in a highly vulnerable section of Lazy Point in Amagansett. Sag Harbor Village recently imposed a moratorium on waterfront permit approvals, which, we hope, will give officials time to consider long-term implications of existing policies and to delineate areas where change is needed. Southampton Town expanded its comprehensive plan last year, adding a sustainability section that took a look at the potential impact of rising seas.

For all the talk, adopting real and meaningful policies has been lagging. Officials may chip around the edges of the problem with buyouts and building pauses, but a truly forward-looking response has yet to emerge. This is perhaps for fear of angering wealthy shoreline property owners or negatively affecting the lucrative tax base they represent. Worse, the agency at the very top of coastal policy, the Army Corps of Engineers, is hopelessly mired in a 50-plus-year study of the region and seems only able to offer retrograde solutions, such as dumping sand on threatened beaches or building seawalls.

As eastern Long Island begins to wonder how it can help reduce human influence on global climate, it must prepare for its effects. And, along the beaches, that means a sensible policy of retreat and relocation.

The East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals appears poised to deal a precedential death blow to a fundamental portion of local land-use law. But before its members allow a landscaping company to take over a residentially zoned lot at 103 Montauk Highway, they should take a very close look at the village code and ask themselves whether what they are being asked to approve meets the letter and intent of the law with regard to when and under what circumstances a pre-existing, nonconforming use can be considered abandoned.

A group of eight neighbors of the former Players Club restaurant have protested that allowing the landscaper there would violate village law because the property is zoned for residences and reverted to that use when the eatery closed more than a year ago. This question is not unique to this property, which is why this matters, nor are we the only ones to point it out.

On North Main Street, in East Hampton Town jurisdiction, a similar issue involving a planned convenience store at the Empire Gas property is being fought out in federal court. In Amagansett, the Inn at Windmill Lane was improperly allowed to expand a long-unused rooming house, which should have reverted to single-family occupancy. And farther east, the Montauk Beach House, despite being in the wrong zone, was allowed to add full meal service, a bar, and live music to its pre-existing, nonconforming hotel on only the most slender of justifications. Meanwhile, the Dunes drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Northwest Woods and an outpatient facility in Springs are operating despite glaring questions about their legality under zoning.

It is immaterial that the former Players Club site at 103 Montauk Highway had been the site of various restaurants since the 1920s: That use ended when the restaurant ceased operation and another eatery did not move in within the required 12 months. Lawyers hoping to win a Z.B.A. permit for the landscaping company have made the ludicrous claim that because the joint’s fixtures were never removed its use never ended. Unfortunately, they appear to have found sympathetic ears among members of the village Z.B.A.

Dubious, too, is that in the initial hearing on the application, Lys Marigold, the Z.B.A. vice chairwoman, said that a landscape business would be “less nonconforming,” something that suggests a misconception of the tenets of local zoning itself.

The notion that it would be legally acceptable to make a property’s use somehow less nonconforming is in error. Zoning codes, including East Hampton Village’s, list what can and cannot be done on residential lots — a simple yes or no concept. Restaurants are nonconforming on house lots, as are many uses, from office buildings to slaughterhouses. There are no gradations provided, a la Orwell’s pigs, that some uses are better than others. Physical setback issues, for example, can be made less nonconforming, but zoning boards should find no latitude in the law on questions of the purpose to which a property is put.

One can see where these views come from — savvy lawyers are adept at bending the rules and offering imaginative interpretations to help their clients obtain maximum financial return. What is a shame is the repeated bobble-headed acquiescences of the various boards and their supporting staffs.

There is still time for the zoning board to take a step back; the matter is to be discussed again at a continued hearing tomorrow. We strongly suggest that the Z.B.A. members ask themselves just what was the intent of the village when it created the portion of the zoning code that insists that pre-existing, nonconforming uses be eliminated when they cease to operate. If they look closely, it should be obvious that the purpose was to gradually concentrate businesses and other intensive-use activities in commercially zoned centers, reduce sprawl along the roadways, and, foremost, protect the interests and rights of ordinary residents to peace, quiet, and the undisturbed enjoyment of their properties.

If the landscaper or any other nonconforming business wants to take over 103 Montauk Highway, the thing to do would be to apply to the village board for a zone change; it is simply not up to the zoning board in this case to rewrite the law on its own.

As officials in the Town of East Hampton and the owners of private property along the ocean in Montauk puzzle over their relationship with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the fate of a proposed beach protection project there, it is well worth reflecting on two unfortunate chapters in that federal agency’s relatively recent history.

As recounted in a recent edition of Smithsonian magazine, the story involves a 9,000-year-old human skeleton found in a Washington State riverbed and an expensive, nine-year legal battle that the corps ultimately lost. Shortly after the so-called Kennewick Man was found, the Army Corps stepped in and claimed his remains based on its interpretation of a law concerning Native American graves. This put an immediate halt to any hope of scientific study.

Skeletons of this age are rare, and the Kennewick Man’s bones held a tantalizing promise of providing new details about the peopling of North America. It was only after a group of physical anthropologists and archaeologists sued, with lawyers working at no cost, that any access was allowed.

While the suit worked its way through the system, Kennewick Man’s bones lay in insecure and substandard conditions. Meanwhile, just as Congress was about to order the preservation of his burial site, the Army Corps dumped about a million pounds of rock fill there for erosion control, dashing all hopes of research.

About 10 years ago, a federal court ruled that the corps had acted in bad faith. It ordered that the remains be made available to the scientists for a limited period and awarded them and their lawyers more than $2.3 million in legal fees.

Over a 16-day period in 2005 and ’06, researchers studied the remains. They learned, among many other things, that he was likely to have been a seal hunter from a population of seafarers whose contemporary relatives can be found in remote parts of Japan and among the Moriori of the distant South Pacific. Today’s Native Americans, including a tribe that claimed him, are descended from migrants who came later, scientists say. A book describing the scientists’ observations has just been published.

Since the brief study period, the corps has denied further requests for access and refused to allow scientists to take small D.N.A. samples, which could provide clues about where Kennewick Man had lived as a child.

Why the corps fought so fiercely to keep scientists away from the remains and why it continues to make things difficult is not clear. However, observers have speculated that the corps has been in ongoing negotiations with Native American nations in the West, and may be loath to anger their leadership over the Kennewick remains.

One thing is clear though: In this instance and for nine years, the agency took a position that was wholly in opposition to science — something that does not bode well for Montauk or the now-50-year-old Fire Island to Montauk Point study that was at one time supposed to present a future vision for Long Island’s south shore.

Some 2,000 miles away from Washington State and 10 years later, the Army Corps’s poor engineering decisions, in the view of another federal judge, were responsible for some of the levee and flood-wall failures that flooded parts of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. In his decision, District Judge Stanwood Duval wrote, “I feel obligated to note that the bureaucratic behemoth that is the Army Corps of Engineers is virtually unaccountable to the citizens it protects. . . .”

Central to any critique of the Army Corps as it relates to the Long Island ocean shoreline is an observation that its approach, admittedly as mandated by Congress, is doomed over the long term. A new exhaustive analysis by the National Research Council found that the “vast majority of the funding for coastal risk-related issues is provided only after a disaster occurs, through emergency supplemental appropriations.” The most cost-sensitive and effective strategies to reduce the consequence of coastal storms, the study’s authors wrote, are given the least attention. These include more aggressive zoning, land buyouts, and paying to elevate buildings. Some baby steps have been taken in East Hampton and around New York City in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, but they are hardly enough.

One can find an example right here, where the approach is to pile sand in front of a row of threatened Montauk motels now, then worry about coming up with the money later on. And, near Louse Point in Springs, the town zoning board is to decide soon on a request from several property owners for a stone seawall that might well mean the end of an easily walked beach as sea level rises; the town trustees have already rejected the project. Better choices in both instances could well be found, though one will have to look beyond the Army Corps and the old way of thinking it represents to find the way.

The local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation sent around a photograph last week that made an inescapable point about Montauk’s downtown beach: There just isn’t that much of it any more, and the planned fix by the Army Corps of Engineers may well wipe away what little is left.

In the image, six members of the group appear roughly arm’s length apart, holding placards that when read together spell out the message: “Don’t Bag Our Beach!” Arrayed in a line from the water’s edge to a partially buried row of snow fencing, they span the 50-foot width of the project on which work could begin within months. By design, the group has said, the beach itself would be gone, an observation supported by the Army Corps’s own plan, available on the Town of East Hampton website.

Hoping to see this for ourselves, we went for a look the other day. Yes, Surfrider is right. At the end of the summer beach-building season, when you would expect the distance from the dunes to the water to be at its widest, there was only a narrow expanse. Guests at several motels, who sat on outside decks taking in the sunset, seemed to be perched above the water itself, with the buildings only one or two bad storms from the brink.

The Army Corps is getting ready to use money from the Hurricane Sandy relief package passed by Congress in a misguided effort to protect the row of motels and residences closest to the ocean there by installing a 3,100-foot-long barrier of sand bags. They would be filled with and initially covered by sand quarried from upland mines — something of great concern to the members of Surfrider and others.

Even worse, the bags would function as short-lived seawalls, resulting in the near-certain total loss of a passable beach and creating massive down-drift scouring to the west. Described by the corps as a temporary measure, the price tag would be approximately $9 million. And it is nothing less than a looming disaster.

Few experts who study the Atlantic Coast recommend anything other than structural retreat from eroding areas outside of the large cities. Here on the South Fork, where wide, clean beaches are an essential basis of the second-home and visitor economy, so-called solutions that result in the loss of quality shoreline are counter to the greater public interest.

The Army Corps plan for Montauk, if it is allowed to go forward, would do more harm than good. In an effort to protect the roughly 10 privately owned properties there, the beach itself, a cherished public asset, would be sacrificed. The notion that someday money would be forthcoming to pump sand in from offshore is little more than fanciful thinking; it cannot be the cornerstone of real-world policy. And without a multimillion-dollar ongoing source of funding, keeping the Montauk sand bags covered is a pipedream, one that, unfortunately, East Hampton Town and Suffolk officials appear ready to sign on to.

So far, the town has seemed to have taken an irresponsible hands-off approach, one that may violate its own Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan on coastal armoring and skirt rules requiring detailed, independent analysis. There are no reports on the corps’s proposal from the Natural Resources or Planning Departments and no sign of an independent environmental impact statement being prepared or a qualified coastal geologist on board. As critics have rightly charged, the Army Corps is guilty of relying on old science — or no science at all — and Town Hall is playing right along.

For its part, the Army Corps has produced a statement finding no significant environmental effects, based in part on a dubious designation of the thousands of bags filled with quarry sand as “nonstructural,” though they would function, by design, precisely the same way as a boulder, steel, or wood seawall. And the Corps’s notion that long-term damage from the sandbags would be mitigated by the Fire Island to Montauk Point project, which is now more than a half-century in the making with still no hope of progress, is just plain wrong.

It would be far better to set aside the money the corps has for Montauk as a down payment on a long-term approach to condemn and buy out the owners of the oceanfront properties, then build a high, more natural dune to protect the rest of the downtown. That would be a big-think, radical response, but anything less would only delay the inevitable, waste taxpayers’ money, and destroy the beach. The East Hampton Town Board needs to withdraw support for this project in a hurry.

More than $15,000 was raised on Sunday during a show of classic cars and lifted trucks organized by friends and family of the late Tyler Valcich of Montauk, who died in May of an apparent suicide. All of the money is to be set aside for mental health services for young people here through the Greater East Hampton Education Foundation. Those involved in what is planned as an annual event deserve a big round of applause for turning a personal tragedy into something good to the extent possible under the circumstances.

The sum raised so far in Mr. Valcich’s name is to be targeted for counseling and preventing young people’s lives from reaching a point of crisis. Though $15,000 may not seem like all that much these days, by the standards with which public mental health services for all people, not just the young, are funded, it is a considerable amount and bodes well.

As far as options for troubled students go, things have been improving here since the 2012 suicide of 16-year-old David Hernandez Barros. There has been a slight increase in funding from the state for the South Fork, and some additional money has been put in school budgets, though far from enough.

Separately, Paddlers for Humanity announced earlier this month that it was giving $80,000 to several South Fork schools to help combat bullying and provide intervention services. Such gifts are essential as districts make tough choices in an effort to stay within the state’s annual 2-percent tax-levy cap. Private donations, like those that came in during Sunday’s car show, may mean the most because they not only help pay for services but remind officials that young minds matter and that there is a wide constituency watching and paying attention now.

Outside observers may never really know whether these contributions and the efforts made pay off in the end, mental health being a deeply private matter. But doing all we can is the only choice for educators, health professionals, and the community.

While Montauk Highway, the main route through East Hampton Town, which we all love to hate, gets most of our attention, another state road, Route 114, is increasingly worthy of serious review.

To list just a few relatively recent incidents: A Sag Harbor mother died after her car left the pavement, a father visiting from away was killed in a head-on collision, two students and one’s mom were injured when their vehicle was hit from behind, and just this week, a drunken driver was sentenced to jail for a crash in which a 6-year-old was critically injured.

Then there are numerous less serious accidents, often at the Stephen Hand’s Path intersection, which are costly, result in hospitalizations, and take up a lot of police time.

Following the Oct. 3 accident in which the two Ross School students were hurt, one seriously, some of the private school’s parents have begun asking for solutions. One idea is to petition the state for a traffic light at Goodfriend Drive, the entrance to the campus, which is sure to be a hot-button issue for some drivers who equate traffic lights with creeping suburbanization. Thing is, the traffic volume and speed appear to be too much for the road’s current configuration.

Whether a traffic light, or a school zone perhaps, would be a suitable solution for that particular area of Route 114 is difficult to say and would need study. What is clear is that too many bad accidents are happening. The state’s Department of Transportation must work with local officials to see that something is done.

At last there is an air of inevitability around the question of marriage equality now that the United States Supreme Court has, by declining to intervene in lower courts’ rulings, let stand same-sex marriage in five states. Right now 24 states allow gender-blind weddings; that number could reach 30 following Monday’s decision. It’s about time.

At one level, it may seem a non-story here in East Hampton and in New York State, where same-sex couples have enjoyed the right to wed since 2011. However, much as one might enjoy this state’s relatively hands-off approach to such private matters, the battle will not really be won until it is the law of the land. Opponents of gay unions have vowed to continue to press their point, however weighed down it is in a vile and outdated culture of discrimination.

For us, the point is simply that no one — and certainly no government — has the right to tell anyone who to love or whom they can marry. That is a personal, private matter in which the state cannot and must not have a say. The sooner this becomes universal for all Americans, the better.

A yes vote would appear assured on Proposal Two, which would allow the New York State Legislature to forgo printing materials that cost some $325,000 a year by distributing them in electronic form. This averages out to about 9 million pages every year and tons of waste. Lawmakers barely read most bills anyway; getting them into a format that they can access via their tablets or smartphones while on the move might actually improve the legislative process. Saving money and reducing waste makes this worthy of the public’s support. Vote yes.

Proposal Three would authorize $2 billion in borrowing to pay for school technology, including broadband, electronic boards, computers, and high-tech security. It would also provide money for pre-kindergarten facilities, moving the tykes out of temporary classroom trailers. The funding would be available to all schools, both public and private.

Though this would appear to be a feel-good, for-the-kids idea, the details are problematic. Large-scale technology initiatives have had mixed results across the country, and this proposal has been criticized for providing money for gear without doing anything to pay for instruction on how to use it. Allowing religious and other private institutions to receive public funding may be well intentioned but is misplaced. Disparities among districts should be addressed through much needed statewide changes in how education is paid for, not by handouts for expensive and quickly outdated equipment. Vote no.

East Hampton Village banned the bags a while ago. Southampton Village did the same even before that. Now, East Hampton Town is poised to follow suit, ordering that those flimsy, thin bags commonly used in supermarkets no longer be welcome.

Based on our experience in the villages, the bans are hardly a bother; it is easy to get in the habit of carrying one’s own, sturdier totes along when shopping, or in a pinch using, if the purchase is small enough, nothing at all. Much to their credit, about the time the East Hampton Village ban went into effect, a few shops, Cirillo’s I.G.A. in Amagansett, for example, just up and did away with plastic on their own. And California will institute a statewide ban next summer.

Scientific American magazine recently took a look at plastic bag bans and concluded that they were worthwhile in several respects. These included reducing direct impact on wildlife and environmental quality, limiting landfills, and reducing fossil-fuel consumption. It cited one urban study in the United States that saw huge decreases in plastic litter in storm drains and natural creeks as well as on city streets and neighborhoods.

At a time when the use of fossil fuels is of massive concern for its role in climate change, East Hampton Town is right to join those at the forefront, seeking positive steps to help reduce related sea level rise. Local officials might not be able to change the world with one small vote, but they must do everything they can to make a difference.

At the same time, residents might do well to think more seriously about other kinds of single-use products, declining that habitual paper bag for the lunch sandwich, for example. Small steps, if enough people take them, add up.

Proposal One on Tuesday’s ballot is a redistricting proposition that could actually make things worse in Albany. It would establish a commission on Assembly, Senate, and Congressional districts to be appointed entirely by the State Legislature’s leadership or their proxies. It should be rejected.

New York has long been faulted for having one of the most dysfunctional state legislatures in the United States. This measure would cement that dubious distinction by concentrating additional power among those with an overwhelming interest in keeping things the way they are. Voting districts would be set by the 10-member commission, which would be dominated by people handpicked by the Senate’s and Assembly’s majority and minority leaders. This would leave in place the tradition of insider horse-trading in the state capital, reducing to nearly zero the chances of district lines being drawn to accurately represent changing demographics.

New York State should have a thoroughly independent redistricting process. Approving this proposal would lock in an unfair system, creating partisan gridlock if and when meaningful district changes were necessary. Real reform would be just about impossible. Vote no.