In August 2017, the mountain world witnessed an impressive manifestation of global warming. An entire mountainside in the Swiss Alps broke loose and crashed into the Bondasca valley. The mountain is called Piz Cengalo and is next to Piz Badile, both of fame among the world’s top rock climbers.

The crumbling of an entire mountainside is extraordinary. You might want to take a look at the live videos on YouTube, or Google “Cengalo rockslide.”

The massive landslide crashed through Val Bondasca and partially destroyed the village of Bondo, which lies at the bottom of this valley, near a major transit way from Milano to St. Moritz in the Engadin. I had visited Bondo in the summer of 2016. The highlight of my trip was a five-hour hike up Val Bondasca to the Sciora hut. That is the mountain hut where serious climbers prepare to climb Cengalo and the neighboring peaks. I stayed overnight with about 40 climbers. 

They set off on their climbs at 4 a.m., while I headed back down into the valley. I knew the area was considered a danger zone for rockslides, but I stayed on the marked pathways and avoided those trails that were marked chiuso (closed). In the wake of the recent rockslide of Aug. 23, there were eight hikers missing, later presumed dead. They, too, descended from the Sciora hut through Val Bondasca along the same path I had been on. Sections of this path are now covered with up to 40 meters of rocks.

In Bondo, television images showed a trail of destruction left by a river of mud and stone. Satellite images recorded the event, as did people in the Sciora hut and even climbers hanging from ropes on the neighboring mountain (Piz Badile). From Swiss authorities at Swissinfo.ch I learned that thawing permafrost and heavy rainfall have been responsible for several fatal landslides or rockslides in recent years.

Why should we care in the Hamptons? Here, the major dangers brought on by global warming are the increased severity and frequency of hurricanes, flooding, damage to infrastructure (and to expensive homes along the beach), and disappearing salt marshes, which represent the breeding grounds for fish and shellfish. Some ignoramuses in our country even doubt that global warming is occurring or that humans have a role in it. 

In the mountains there is no doubt. Glaciers that were once tourist attractions have all but disappeared. And famous mountains, like Eiger and Matterhorn, are now crumbling. There is concern that pillars supporting mountain telecabines (tourist installations) might be in danger, and they are being carefully monitored. Lack of snow, receding glaciers, and now the danger of rockslides are all threatening tourism in a major way.

Europeans cannot understand defiant American politicians who pulled the United States out of the Paris agreement. They cannot understand people like President Trump, or his cheerleading congressman, Lee Zeldin, when they appear to support banning science from the Environmental Protection Agency and banning the very words “climate change” within the Department of Energy’s climate office.

For mountain folks, the disasters are real and all too close to home.

David Posnett, M.D., is emeritus professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan. He lives in Springs.

In 1997, when I lived in New Jersey, I read about the state’s proposal to hold black bear hunts. I was becoming very concerned about the well-being of nonhuman animals, and I testified against the proposal at public hearings. After the hunts began, in 2003, I participated in protests every year and was arrested several times for civil disobedience. Typically, I stepped outside an area designated for protesters. 

For a while my arrests resulted only in fines. Then, last year, I spent eight days in the Sussex County jail. This year I was sentenced to 15 days, beginning Jan. 2. I will describe my recent jail stay. Although it was shorter than that of most inmates, I hope my experience adds to people’s knowledge of what jail is like. 

I spent my first two days in medical lock-in. I was isolated in a locked cell until I received a medical exam and a more permanent placement. The cell door had a window, but it was so small that I could catch only occasional glimpses of other people. I was let out a few times — to see the doctor and nurses, make two phone calls (to my wife, Ellen), and take a shower. 

While returning to my cell on the first day, I saw a novel (“The Girl on the Train”) on top of a TV, and the corrections officer allowed me to take it into my cell. I had trouble reading because of the noise from the TV and because my cell was very cold, but the book helped me pass a few hours. I also tried to pass the time by sleeping, but the bed’s uncomfortable plastic mattress made this difficult. For many hours, I had nothing to do. The monotony was tough. 

After medical lock-in, I was assigned to the same cell but I now could leave it for extended periods. I could go into the small, common dayroom shared by two other inmates, O and R. 

Our unit was called the “overflow area.” It’s used when other units are full. It’s also used to separate some inmates from the general population. The jail staff wanted to make sure that I, a 74-year-old college professor, was safe. Staff members had placed O and R in our unit because they considered them to be too volatile and aggressive to mix with the numerous inmates of other units.

It seems odd to place two short-tempered inmates and me together, but one corrections officer told me that when there are just a few inmates in an area, they usually form friendships and relax.

O was discharged three days after I left medical lock-in. He was eager to tell me about his jail and prison experiences. I felt I was just beginning to know him. 

R was initially cool to me, even refusing to say hello. But after listening to O share personal experiences, R joined in. After that, R and I had many personal conversations.

R was recovering from a suicide attempt that followed his recent sentence. He believed the sentence was very unfair, and he fought with the corrections officers who tried to take him from the courthouse to the jail. An armored police squadron came in and subdued him. As R sat in his cell, he felt powerless; the entire criminal justice system seemed too much to cope with.

In addition, R’s marriage had recently broken up. Feeling helpless and without anything to live for, he tied bedsheets together and tried to hang himself. He passed out four times before a corrections officer found him. Blood was coming from his nose and mouth.

After his suicide attempt, R was taken to the psychiatric ward, given medications, and sent to the overflow area. To my surprise, he was upbeat and chatty with the officers he knew, but he hated one. He said the officer had insulted him just prior to his suicide attempt. 

One day this officer was assigned to monitor our area. Whenever he appeared, R hurled loud insults at him, to which the officer tried not to respond. 

The next morning a sergeant privately asked me if I felt safe with R, and if I wanted to be moved. I said I wanted to stay where I was. Later that morning, R told me the sergeant had asked him the same questions, and he also said he wanted to remain where he was. R speculated that the sergeant was worried about R’s feelings toward me because when inmates get angry at officers, they often redirect their anger toward inmates. R told me that this wouldn’t happen with me; he liked me.

The dayroom wasn’t as cold as my cell, but it was cold. We often wore blankets over our shoulders.

The officers and medical staff were friendly and tried to be helpful. The kitchen couldn’t accommodate my vegan diet and gave me some non-vegan items (like cheese), which I handed to O and R. They gave me some of their vegetables. 

During our conversations, O and R used so many prison expressions that they sometimes seemed to be speaking a foreign language. I frequently had to ask them to stop and translate. Here is an example of jail talk:

“He is in jail a long time because of his jacket [prior criminal record]. He’s upstairs with the jitterbugs [rowdy young adult inmates]. I didn’t like it there. A lot of them want to kick up [fight].”

O and R spent considerable time watching TV, especially shows about survival in Alaska and auctions. But they wished they had more to do. They envied inmates who had jail jobs like helping to deliver the meals. (I requested a job, but my sentence was too short.)

Inmates can receive books from the outside only if they are sent directly from the publisher. After medical lock-in, I had to wait two more days before I received three books my wife ordered. They were by Thoreau. After another two days, the jail’s book cart came around, and it had an old sociology book that I read from time to time.

An officer gave me a pen — a small, rubber pen that couldn’t be used for stabbing. I had no writing paper, but O and R gave me some of theirs. I mainly took notes on the Thoreau books, writing for 15 or 20-minute periods, until the TV noise and the cold got the better of me.

During my second week, I attended the hourlong recreation periods. Each day about 15 inmates exercised on the gym equipment, interspersed with walking. I only walked. Most of the men seemed to be in their 20s and 30s. They were full of high spirits, joking about gay behavior and talking about pro football. 

I had heard so many stories about jail abuse that I initially focused on my exercise and hoped I wouldn’t appear vulnerable. A couple of inmates recognized me from newspaper articles about a vigil the Bear Education and Resource Group held for me while I was in jail and an award I received from PETA. The inmates seemed happy about the articles. But when I said goodbye on the second recreation day, they seemed resentful. They barely mumbled goodbye.

That night, I thought about their reaction. It occurred to me that I had been acting like a young man who was focused on his image, whereas these inmates saw me as an elder and wanted some affirmation from me. I couldn’t think of a great way of doing this, but the next day I complimented one man on his numerous push-ups and another on his pull-ups. To my surprise, the entire mood in the recreation room changed. Everyone became friendly. When I said goodbye, they happily responded with expressions like “Peace, Bro.” 

I was given three days off for good behavior, shortening my stay from 15 to 12 days. One might guess that I felt happy as my stay came to a close, but I did not. Instead, I felt increasingly closed in and was troubled by irrational thoughts that I wouldn’t get out. 

Following my discharge I had upsetting dreams that I was still in jail. In one dream, I was forced to enter a small crawl space from which I might not return. After 10 days these dreams went away. 

Jail was difficult for me, but I believe it was worth it. I needed to make a statement about the terrible plight of the black bears. Since 2003, the state-promoted hunts have killed more than 4,000 bears, including cubs. New Jersey’s new governor, Phil Murphy, will place a moratorium on the hunts. It’s about time. 

Bill Crain is a professor of psychology at the City College of New York. He lives part time in Montauk.

You are walking out of a gourmet market with a chockablock shopping bag in either hand when an employee holds the door open and says, “Have a great day, young fella.”

You halt in your tracks. The tone is polite and the intention well meaning, but the millennial gent knows full well you are not a “young fella.” You are a 72-year-old fella who knows the definition of sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt, and the definition of irony is stating the opposite of the truth for humor or emphasis. 

You wonder if you should say something to the nice lad. You might ask, “Had I been African-American, would you have said, ‘Have a great day, Caucasian dude’? Or had I been morbidly obese, would you have said, ‘Have a great day, Beanpole’?” Unlikely.

You say nothing. Anything would sound like “Get off my lawn!” Even though you have a song in your heart and a pretty good hop in your step, you fear you appear as little more than crow’s feet encroaching on a white unironic mustache perched above a smile. If anyone needed to augment “Have a great day,” couldn’t he have found visual targets other than your sags and wrinkles? 

You are wearing a gray overcoat with epaulets, ludicrously skinny blue jeans, white New Balance sneakers, and an old black Eagles cap. (That’s right: You are a Philadelphian and Philadelphians are a particularly sensitive lot, especially when unflattering words are hurled in their direction or snowballs whiz by their heads.) You would like to hear, “Have a great day and congratulations to the Eagles.” Or, “Have a great day, you tall and stylish gentleman.” You hear only a sophomoric wisecrack about being a generic senior citizen.

To the millennial at the door, you wish you had said: One knows when one is getting old, young friend; one is reminded often and dramatically, incessantly and subtly, and one need not be reminded when one is on a pleasant afternoon jaunt shopping for dinner with friends in blissful, if temporary, obliviousness to the passage of time and the nearness of death. 

You have a hankering to explain all this in complex detail, but you realize folks of fewer years prefer snappy lists to protracted essays, so you produce a baker’s dozen of the ways one knows one is getting long in the tooth.

1. You think readers know what a “baker’s dozen” is or what “long in the tooth” means.

2. You find yourself brushing your long teeth with warm water.

3. You talk to more doctors than bartenders any given week.

4. You watch “Jeopardy” (and excel with questions about the ’50s and ’60s).

5. You are offered a seat on the bus by a pregnant woman.

6. You do not know one musical group in the Billboard Top 10. (You do not know if there still exists a Billboard Top 10. Or if they still ascribe a bullet to an ascending song. You hope not.)

7. You own Apple products you don’t know how to use.

8. You notice glazed looks every time you mention Tony Curtis or Norman Mailer. 

9. You take a nap when you didn’t plan on taking a nap.

10. You meet someone and her first question is, “Are you retired?” 

11. You get a senior citizen discount at the movies without asking for one.

12. You hear “Sir” and look around for your Uncle Joe or Father Xavier.

Baker’s Bonus:

13. You are younger than Ringo and always will be.

Bruce Buschel is a writer, director, and producer. He lives in Bridgehampton.

In this newish century, who needs marriage? Eight of my closest friends are in four marriages, each of which has lasted more than half a century. Admitting that fact is designed to dispose of any suspicions that I don’t support conventional marriage — if that’s what you think you want.

All eight of my friends, however, were young at a time when, if you wanted to leave home, bed your girlfriend, and build a life of your own (not necessarily in that order), you simply had to get married. And so despite the pressures these four couples have faced over the years — the differing evolution of their personalities, their often nomadic lives, and, in some cases, their challenging children — they’ve been able to keep their unions intact. I honor and love them for their tolerance and strength of purpose.

But when people ask me if I’m married, I give the answer Jeff Goldblum uses in “Jurassic Park”: “Occasionally.” Because after two marriages and three score years and 10, I simply don’t see the point of visiting that institution again.

I’ll go further: I’d say it has nothing to do with the fact that I may one day need someone to ask me why I’ve put the car keys in the fridge — again. If I were in my 20s, “savage with health and armed to the teeth with time” (as Philip Roth had it), I would still question why I should get married when a sensible pre-partnership arrangement could take care of any financial or offspring fallout if things didn’t work out.

Recently, I heard the actress Goldie Hawn explain why she and her partner of 33 years, Kurt Russell, never felt the need to marry: “If you need to be bound to someone, then it’s important to be married,” she said. “If you are independent, then it’s important to not be married.” She went on to say that, had they been married, “I would have been long divorced.”

That’s a live-and-let-live response if you want to be branded as someone who needs to be bound to someone. Yet I can’t hear today’s millennials of either sex confessing to such neediness. But, hey, what do I know? Other than having a daughter who is solidly in that demographic and determinedly independent.

Here’s the strange thing: When I describe the kind of relationship I now have with my partner, every married couple I know (and even those simply contemplating marriage) says, “We should have that!”

So, what is “that”? 

She and I live within what I believe is now called an “apartnership.” We’ve both been married before, usually for some happy years, but the need for independence, for not being bound, as Goldie says, brought those marriages to an end.

I guess the core of any successful relationship is simply enjoying each other’s company. But who says you have to cohabit?

My partner and I don’t live together, but we’re lucky enough to live at the beach. Her house is two sand dunes away from mine. Broadly, we like similar movies, books, places, people, and political ideas. We enjoy reading, eating, drinking, and traveling together — and at the same pace. We love our separately created children and grandchildren; we see them independently and, on special occasions, blended. We never quarrel about money because our finances are separate; on joint ventures, we split costs evenly. We love being alone; we love being together. When one of us is away, we know there’s no need for regular updates because we respect that the other person should have that independent time, free of any obligation to “stay in touch.”

“That’s terrific,” you might say, “but you’re older, you don’t have young children.” 

Sure, it’s easier for child-free people to live this way, but couples who are separated or divorced still manage to raise children through shared households. Be honest: In a conventional marriage, you start as a man and a woman, then you become husband and wife, and, finally, most couples slope toward domestic oblivion when they squeeze into that androgynous onesie known as “Mum ’n’ Dad” or “Mom ’n’ Pop.”

In an apartnership, each partner has time to be independent, each has a chance to be a man or a woman for a few days of the week — instead of being stifled in those passion-killing “girl jobs and boy jobs” (as British Prime Minister Theresa May instructs us) every day of the week.

Many married couples have, of course, evolved into apartnerships. The passage of time, the departure of children, the care of aging parents, the claustrophobia of propinquity, or, sometimes, the need for one partner to be based elsewhere for financial reasons — all or any of these produce pragmatic reasons for being apart. After only a short period of adjustment, however, being in separate rooms often gives the marriage more room to breathe — a second wind, in fact.

Finally, those four marriages I told you about? The couple with, in my view, the richest, most balanced relationship suggest that it’s due to their jobs: She’s an academic; he’s an airline pilot.

Brian Clewly Johnson is the author of two recent memoirs, “A Cape Town Boy” and “A Roller Coaster Man.” He lives in Amagansett.

Have you ever wondered what’s in that bottle of detergent or softener you pour into your washing machine, or on that fragrant dryer sheet you throw into your dryer? Well, it’s time you did, because the truth about your laundry products might make you change your laundry routine forever.

Many of the common laundry detergents, softeners, and dryer sheets that sit on our supermarket shelves, like Procter & Gamble’s popular original Tide, and fragrance-free Tide Free and Gentle, contain high levels of 1,4-dioxane, a carcinogenic pollutant. Lesser amounts of the same contaminant were detected in Bounce, both original and Free and Gentle. It’s no wonder that this carcinogenic contaminant has been found in 39 Long Island water districts, many of them in the Town of East Hampton. It’s a shame and a disgrace that Procter & Gamble has consciously chosen not to reformulate these toxic products that people use every day. 

Neither New York State nor the federal Environmental Protection Agency regulates dioxane in drinking water. According to Citizens Campaign for the Environment, “Once this chemical flows down your drain, it travels into our groundwater through our septic tanks and cesspools,” before flowing “outward into our surface waters or downward into our aquifers, which are the sole source of Long Island’s drinking water. Removing it is a difficult problem once it hits the groundwater and soil.” 

Not only is this toxic chemical found in laundry detergents and soaps, it’s also found in shampoos and body washes. Citizens Campaign for the Environment reports that “approximately 46 percent of personal care products, including detergents, dishwashing soaps, shampoos, cosmetics, deodorants, and body lotions, contain 1,4-dioxane.” In addition, dryer sheets, a common part of many people’s laundry routine, are laden with a multitude of toxic ingredients.

Why would you expose your skin to such dangerous contaminants? If you look on the box of those dryer sheets, you’ll discover that none of the toxic ingredients are listed. Why not, you ask? Well, the current U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission doesn’t require it.

Dr. Anne Steinemann, an expert on pollutants and human health at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has studied the chemicals that discharge from people’s dryer vents into the air and then into our lungs and found that “there are seven dangerous air contaminants and 25 volatile organic compounds that are emitted into the air from fabric softeners and dryer sheets, such as acetaldehyde and benzene. These contaminants are not safe at any level; they are the same pollutants that are emitted from the tailpipes of automobiles. Acetaldehyde is a common ingredient used in fake fragrance blends. It’s potentially carcinogenic to humans and adversely impacts the kidneys and nervous and respiratory systems.” 

Just take a bike ride or a walk through any neighborhood in East Hampton and you can smell these noxious chemicals being blown out of your neighbors’ dryer vents.

In 2016, Dr. Steinemann conducted a study that found that “12.5 percent of people blamed scented laundry products spewing from dryer vents for health issues. These included migraines, respiratory issues, skin issues, asthma attacks, and gastrointestinal symptoms.” The scary thing is that Procter & Gamble, the company responsible for most of these products, touts them as being “ideal for newborns and babies.” 

What can you do? Stop buying these contaminated products. Each of us as individuals, working together as a community of concerned citizens, can make a difference. All you need to do is say no to the use of these products and purchase eco-friendly detergents instead. There are several companies, such as Seventh Generation, that have come out with healthy but effective cleaning and laundry products.

In addition, the not-for-profit organization Earthjustice recently asked residents of New York to contact Gov. Andrew Cuomo because “he promised to make protecting the public and the environment from chemical contamination a top priority.” For your health, and the health of the environment, “tell Governor Cuomo to require disclosure of all cleaning product ingredients — not just those products the manufacturers add intentionally.” 

We should be holding the governor to his promise. Let him know who you are, where you live, and that you’d like transparency for everything that’s being put into cleaning products, shampoos, and body washes that are being sold in New York State.

Remember, it’s never too late to take a stand for your health and for the health of our environment. 

Helene Forst is a teacher, environmental activist, and the author of two young-adult novels, “The Journey of Hannah Woods” and “Stoked — 1969.” She lives in East Hampton.

I love musicals. Maybe you’ve seen my writing about them here. My encounters with Stephen Sondheim, my adoration of Kander and Ebb. And now, how much I also love Jerry Herman, with “Hello, Dolly!” hitting the big-bucks time with the revival (tickets top a grand, I just read). I’ve seen it twice. Once with the Divine Miss M, and then with the lesser but equally fabulous other Miss M, Donna Murphy.

Brilliant.

I put on “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” often on Pandora or Sonos. Or with my headphones on my iPhone. A rousing song from the show. (Jerry Herman does rousing well.) Although I did think of him as underrated in the era of the aforementioned Sondheim and Kander and Ebb. But he is really redeemed now. And like Sondheim and Cole Porter before him, Jerry Herman does it all, does it both: music and lyrics. He may have been underappreciated earlier on, but one thing he did do early on was send Bernadette Peters into the stratosphere of Broadway broads.

I have seen Bernadette Peters a lot, although not in her Herman breakthrough, “Mack and Mabel.” I did, however, see her perform in a concert where she sang the heartbreaking love song from that show: “Time Heals Everything.” (Jerry does love very well.) I compare the idea of that song to one of my favorites from Sondheim: “Losing My Mind.” Both are about obsessive love. Unforgettable and forever love. (Often a theme in show business, regardless of how unrealistic.)

But back to Bernadette. In 1984, she was divine as Dot, a corny name for a character in Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George.” About the painter Georges Seurat, with his pointillism. Dot. Get it?

I got it and saw it half a dozen times, a wondrous musical about, of all things, a painting. I also caught the more recent London import at Studio 54 another half-dozen times. This, with animated trees and a lake in the park. And boats. And soldiers. And parasols. (I’ll have to Google and see if Peters or Mandy Patinkin — never better — won Tony Awards for the original. I know the show won a Pulitzer Prize.)

Sondheim: There may never be another like him, with his sophisticated cleverness, his hilarious wordplay, and his haunting visual references to love, among many other unequaled attributes. And the themes: Not only a musical about a painting, but also about a murderous barber. And a group of assassins. Also Follies girls, aging and revisiting their past. The range! I digress to Sondheim, but there is an ultimate point if you keep reading.

So back to Peters once more, and the extraordinary coincidence of seeing her at two different opening nights of two very different Broadway shows. Here goes:

In 1997 a revival of “Chicago” opened (and is incidentally still running). I happened to catch the original in 1976. Liza Minnelli was filling in for Gwen Verdon alongside Chita Rivera. Kander and Ebb again. They also paired up those two legendary performers in two other (lesser) shows later: “The Act” and “The Rink.” But I digress. Again.

In 1997, it was Ann Reinking and Bebe Neuwirth playing the merry murderesses of the Cook County Jail. I was invited by my good friend Tony to the opening night, and there, on that opening night, in the audience, was Bernadette Peters — along with Mary Tyler Moore, I might add.

You can’t miss Ms. Peters — that curly mop of vibrant red hair, her pale, pale skin, the Kewpie doll lips. And Mary was Mary. Regal. An icon among the rest of us ordinary people that night. I saw the two of them on my way out of the theater after the show ended. A great New York City celebrity spotting — good thing I was too shy at the time to tell either one of them, or, actually, the two of them, what a fan I was. Of the two of them.

Flash-forward to 2017. Opening night of “The Band’s Visit,” an invite by my dear friend Edward, an investor in the show.

Now, I do go to the theater a lot. But I’ve been to only two opening nights. And there, at “The Band’s Visit,” was Bernadette Peters. (Sadly, not with Mary, gone now but living on in reruns of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and her own namesake sitcom.)

Now, I ask you: Wouldn’t you call that quite a coincidence? Two opening nights? Twenty years apart? And, once again, Bernadette Peters with the glowing white skin, that hair, and those lips. Amazingly, she looked exactly the same 20 years later.

Does she go to every opening night?

Which brings me back, I always go back, to Stephen Sondheim.

One night, in the middle of the run of “Gypsy” in which B.P. was playing Momma Rose, I saw S.S. in the theater. Not shy now, I asked him to sign my Playbill. I gushed and went on and on to let him know that I was his greatest fan.

“Cool it,” he said as he signed.

For the other theater die-hards out there, allow me to digress one more time — I promise, it’s the last digression. In London a couple of years ago, I saw “Gypsy” with Imelda Staunton in the Rose role, and who was there, behind me, entering the theater? No, not Bernadette, but Sondheim, I repeat, in London, on just an ordinary night of the run, long after the opening night. I didn’t ask for his signature on a Playbill this time because in London there are no Playbills. Only larger size and more colorful programs that you have to pay for.

Coincidental, right? Like Bernadette? Fate, it seems that I must get myself tickets as she appears in her own opening night in “Hello, Dolly!” come Jan. 20. I must. And just did.

Hmm . . . maybe Stephen Sondheim will be in the audience, too.

Hy Abady is a former advertising executive who had a house in Amagansett for 30 years. A contributor for 25 years, he has collected his “Guestwords” essays in two books, including “Back in The Star Again: Further Stories From the East End.”

Like many of you, when I was growing up, all the outdoors was my playground. From the rocks left behind by long-ago glaciers to the mysterious seashells washed ashore on the beach, this dynamic environment of ours has always fascinated me. That fascination with nature turned into my pursuit of science. Physics led me to a world of problem solving; biology reaffirmed my reasons for trying harder to understand our world and to make it a better place. 

From 1996 until very recently when I applied to be a congressional candidate, I worked as a scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Now, although ever a scientist at heart, I am running to represent the diverse community of the First Congressional District to protect our jobs, create new ones, and especially to protect our Long Island environment — home to the most stunning seascapes in the country as well as to more than 7.5 million of us who look forward to keeping our beaches beautiful and our water clean and safe to drink.

For Long Islanders, water is our common ground. Regardless of the size of our paychecks, our politics, our ethnicity, or our religion, all of us benefit from our beaches, which attract tourists from all over the world. Our economy, particularly on the East End, centers on tourism, and Long Island has long been a coveted vacation destination. As locals, we get to enjoy the sand, the surf, and historical towns year round. So when our beaches become polluted, when the safety of our drinking water is at risk, we all face the same health and economic threats. Therefore, we should all be a part of the solution.

There have long been questions about the safety of our water. With the high rate of breast cancer on Long Island and throughout the country, for years there was much speculation that toxins in our water could be the culprit. To date, no conclusive link has been established. However, there have been studies to suggest that contaminants have made their way into our drinking water through irresponsible waste disposal. In those bygone days of Long Island manufacturing, some big employers, it is believed, were responsible for a toxic plume, posing a risk to the water supplies of Bethpage, South Farmingdale, and Massapequa. 

Closer to home, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has focused on East Hampton Airport as a possible inactive hazardous waste disposal site. And last month, the Suffolk County Water Authority sued 11 manufacturers for polluting our public water wells with harmful chemicals used in the production of firefighting foam, industrial greasers, detergents, and other household products.

Cleaning up these contaminants will cost many millions of dollars — something that could have been prevented. But if, as the plaintiffs have alleged, these companies out of either ignorance or arrogance allowed these chemicals to infiltrate our groundwater and present a threat to the health of Long Islanders, there perhaps need to be much clearer regulations and stiffer penalties for pollution. In law, ignorance is not a defense.

Fortunately, we live in New York, where Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has invested heavily in the preservation of our public water. In fact, he recently announced nearly $27 million in grants to support 13 essential Long Island drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects. But this kind of environmental protection is crucial throughout our government. Municipalities, local governments, and state governments cannot be expected to shoulder alone the expense or the complex scientific research required to investigate and clean up contaminants. Water pollution, air pollution, and, of course, the devastating effects of climate change require a national effort — it is a matter of our civil rights. We have the right to live on Long Island and in this country without getting sick.

Unfortunately, today we are seeing a near decimation of the one agency in the federal government charged with protecting our whole environment — the Environmental Protection Agency. Instead of making deep cuts in this agency (established in 1970 by President Richard Nixon), we should be making further investments in it. A well-funded and properly functioning E.P.A. would be able to zoom out and broadly assess how clean water flows in all of our U.S. waterways, and also determine the trouble spots. Despite the political fervor of the last year, as congresswoman for the First District, I would lead the fight to restore and build upon the assets of the E.P.A.

What has too often happened in this district is a narrow focus on a few Long Island estuaries rather than a comprehensive assessment of all our waterways. After all, it is wholly inconsistent to vote for a bill to protect Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay in 2015, and then abandon environmental principles two years later to vote in sync with a new administration that seeks to gut the E.P.A. Protecting our environment is a lifetime commitment — it should be and used to be a bipartisan commitment — and that is the least of what we should expect from our elected officials.

What can you do? For starters, you can get involved in local environmental groups that address issues pertaining to Long Island bays, estuaries, and pine barrens, Plum Island, and First Nation lands. National organizations with Long Island chapters include the Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club, and Citizens Climate Lobby. You also can write to pressure the current Congress and the Trump administration to increase their support of the E.P.A.

Elaine DiMasi, a Democrat who lives in Ronkonkoma, will take part in a forum for progressive candidates on Saturday from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Stony Brook Southampton’s Chancellors Hall.

Whatever transpires in 2018, cancer will not defeat John McCain. 

Cancer is neither an opponent nor a binary condition, and the sooner we stop pitting humans against a disease, stop using war metaphors in the field of medicine, the better off we all shall be, especially cancer patients and their loved ones. Many a mislabeled loser has been quietly valiant and privately heroic.

A war veteran, prisoner of war survivor, and presidential candidate, Senator McCain’s courage has never been in question. But glioblastoma cares nothing about mettle or fortitude. Only 5 out of 100 people outlive the illness, and, according to the best studies available, their survival was not due to willpower or fighting spirit. Teddy Kennedy and Beau Biden lacked for neither, and both were felled by the disease. 

If “battling cancer” has long been a misguided metaphor, it seems spectacularly inapposite in connection with the redoubtable John McCain. Cancer is not an adversary to be conquered or outflanked; cancer is the emperor of all maladies. An oncology team finds it, cuts it out, poisons it, irradiates it, and prays for the best. If they are successful, your cancer will go into hiding and lurk just outside the gates of good fortune for a long time. The idea of winning or losing is just cruel, as it has been since Susan Sontag made the point 40 years ago in her classic “Illness as Metaphor.”

When first diagnosed, unspoken shame strikes all patients: You must have smoked or drunk too much, eaten unwisely, exercised insufficiently, loved incompletely, or mangled your emotions into some sorry state. And then, should you succumb to cancer, the unuttered implication is you did not fight doggedly enough, or you chose the wrong hospital or wrong protocol or, God forbid, the wrong God. 

It is all unnecessary and untrue. You do not declare war on nature; cancer has been with us since ancient Greece, when Hippocrates, the father of medicine, removed tumors around 440 B.C. Just like my doctors did for me in 2015. 

Tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma is not as lethal as glioblastoma, but it’s a serious disease. Cancer of the head and neck is the sixth most common malignancy in the world. Possessing neither the energy nor inclination to charge into battle, I surrendered to the new realities of the constant companionship of mortality and the hard work ahead.

After CAT and PET scans, I took drugs, took notes, had teeth removed, then a tonsil (by a robot) and dozens of lymph nodes. No food or water for eight days. Thirty-five radiation sessions scrambled my taste buds like eggs, burned my throat like toast, and fried my saliva glands. Eating was a chore. Forty pounds disappeared. Talking was difficult, breathing was compromised, and any social life was fantasy. Hardest of all, perhaps, was trusting total strangers who introduced themselves as my doctors and nurses and technicians and dietitians and therapists — far from a battalion of warriors, they made up a gentle, lifesaving team. They addressed my cancer. I dealt with my psyche. And my family. I can only hope I did as well as they.

Battle cancer? At 67 years of age? At 80? At 8? Other than “following orders,” military language never came into play. If a metaphor were needed, weather provided a more useful lexicon. Weather can surprise, strike hard, and then dissipate. Cancer was akin to a great northeaster; once spotted on the radar screen, you batten down the hatches, consult the experts, follow the playbook, gather supplies and community, and hope for the best. You don’t fight weather. You don’t blame its victims, and you don’t put the onus on the stricken.

Then, as now, support and encouragement can be salutary during hard times and health challenges, but they are not magical. With cancer, the only real war is the war of words. People mean well, but their best wishes can be laced with unintended meaning. 

And even a wordsmith like Barack Obama, ever empathic, could use some re-education.

“Give it hell, John,” is what Mr. Obama tweeted to Senator McCain last year.

You cannot give cancer hell. Cancer is hell.

Some metaphors work.

I am sending a letter of resignation to Minnesota Public Radio, the three major networks, CNN, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Washington Post in anticipation of allegations that I might harass someone if I were hired to become part of their staffs. Harassment is viral and I am no longer certain my autonomic nervous system can be relied on in situations where there are other bodies in an enclosed space. After all, it’s by definition autonomic, right? It’s easy to forget that man’s an animal as well as a conscious being.

People who are suffering from illnesses that make them particularly vulnerable to infection have to be quarantined in germ-free rooms in which they run no risk of contamination. That’s what is slowly happening in America today. The only ways to avoid allegations of harassment are quarantine or recusal. Who knows if the next handshake or attempt to help someone who has tripped will result in a firing? 

Doesn’t anyone remember the House Un-American Activities Committee, the blacklist, and the tarring and featherings that are an ignominious part of our history? The alacrity with which whole careers and lifetimes are disposed of without even a semblance of due process and the self-righteous outcries for revenge all reek of the lynch mob style of justice. Why is no one speaking up? 

When you read that “The Best of A Prairie Home Companion” will no longer be rerun and that the version of the show hosted by Chris Thile will appear under a new name, and that “The Writer’s Almanac” will no longer be distributed by American Public Media, it recalls the Nazi book burnings. (“Garrison Keillor Accused of ‘Inappropriate Behavior,’ Minnesota Public Radio Says,” NPR, Nov. 29.) Garrison Keillor touched a woman’s back. What about more severe offenses? 

Does this mean we will no longer be able to read or see work by thieves like Jean Genet, sex offenders like Roman Polanski, or bigots like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot? “Israel Horovitz Plays Canceled After Sexual Misconduct Accusations” read a Dec. 1 headline in the arts section of The Times.

There was the Counter-Reformation in Europe, which was basically a reaction to Luther. The question is will there be an equivalent movement here in response to the sexual revolution of the 1960s? The issue with the current spate of harassment charges against prominent figures in politics and the media is not sex but power in the workplace. Remember that iconic office harassment scene in a 1960 episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “A Stop at Willoughby,” about a beleaguered advertising executive whose only exit from the pressures of his life is ultimately death?

On the other hand, Hollywood casting couches notwithstanding, it’s unlikely that any of the liberties taken by the likes of Harvey Weinstein would have occurred were it not for the umbrella of liberalization that took place in the ’60s. In fact, almost all of those accused are onetime love children who were products of the ’60s counterculture, with the exception of Roy Moore, that is. And even back in the heyday of love-ins, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse coined the term “repressive desublimation,” which anticipated the notion of sexual addiction in pointing to the soporific, drug-like effects of the culture of hedonism. 

However, with statutes like “affirmative consent” in states like New York and California, it appears that those who wish to express their sexual desires have to run a gauntlet of new laws. These statutes play into an undercurrent of puritanism in American culture that makes novels like Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” more pertinent today than ever.

Francis Levy, a Wainscott resident, is the author of the comic novels “Erotomania: A Romance” and “Seven Days in Rio.” His “Tombstone: Not a Western” will be released in April. He blogs at TheScreamingPope.com and on HuffPost.

I am 76 years old and I have been listening to sermons for all those 76 years. My religiously devout parents took me to church from the get-go. I had the longest string of perfect attendance pins in the history of the Oak Park Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia — one of the longest strings of perfect attendance pins in the whole of the U.S.A. I have heard thousands of sermons, sung millions of hymns, and heard the Bible explained in trillions of ways.

Often while listening or singing I have wished I had a basket of rotten fruit to heave at the pulpit and express my opinion of the preacher — such nonsense from the pulpit, such pap in the hymns, such utter confusion in Bible spinning. 

I have often thought that any of us in our little church in Springs could cook up any new religion at all from the Bible. It is so endlessly confusing and contradictory and too often appallingly violent. 

Once I took my 12-year-old daughter to a Bible discussion group at my Congregational church in Maine. A liberal bunch are these Congregationalists (at least in Maine), but Lily was so appalled by the violence of the Bible stories, she swore she would never go back to another Bible class. “How can you explain all that killing when you speak of Christians as people who love God and love their neighbor,” she said. In essence she pointed out that we’re all either hypocrites or psychotic. 

And yet that is what Jesus said, these few simple words: “Love God, love your neighbor.” We say God is love, and therefore, at least in my calculation, love is God. Love is the spirit that surrounds us, or should. That’s where we should be, in the spirit. But too often — daily — we stray from love to pettiness and hate and casual violence.

How is it that this Christian nation is also among the most violent? More mass shootings than any country on the planet. A love of guns that often equals our love of the church. Where does this violence come from? Why do we sit quietly and listen to our politicians speak of wiping out North Korea — which means millions of deaths, people like you and me? And we tolerate politicians who treat these people as nothing. We hear lie after lie from our politicians and we see violent death after violent death on our screens and think nothing of it. 

Is it that we Christians have been infected by our own Bible? “Guns and God” is what some of us worship, said a former president. Is that who we are as a nation? As Americans?

Consider if you would the New and the Old Testaments. We start with genocide. This God ethnically cleanses the earth and sends Noah out on a ship to save a few lucky critters, including us. When I was a kid in Sunday school we loved this tale — think of the neat animals, the fortunate humans, the great sea adventure. Never once did our kindly teacher mention the slaughter of innocents that this God had brought about — the millions of little kids dead in the sea. Imagine the stench of their decaying bodies. We kids were not encouraged to think about any of that gloomy stuff. God made a mistake in his creation so he wiped it out. What a rollicking tale. 

Then we come to Abraham and Isaac. Abe wanted to prove to God what a loyal fellow he was. His devotion and his willingness to sacrifice his only son are the basis for three religions — Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. He stakes out Isaac on a hill and prepares to kill him when, presto, God lets him off the hook. In some interpretations he does kill Isaac. 

What a fine example to us Christians. Instead of suggesting that he be locked up after all these years, we admire Abraham. But of course this history of child murder is not over. Many more human sacrifices follow. We come to the tale of God and his only son, Jesus. The lamb slain by his dad to erase the sins of the world. I’m not buying that spin and neither should any Christian. 

We do not worship baby killers. We are not a religion of human sacrifice. This has nothing to do with who Jesus was or who Jesus thought he was.

But just to make it even worse for those of us who worship the God of love, we run smack into Revelation at the end of the Bible — a bloody bookend with Genesis. Revelation is nothing less than a bloodbath of vengeance. Odd 10-horn beasts and various hate-inspired monsters slather the world in gore. Revelation alone has inspired more human violence than almost any book, including “Mein Kampf.”

I bring all this up to suggest to you why the Christian Church worldwide is in decline. The cathedrals of Europe are empty; American churches are in free fall. Our own little church — which is precious to me — has dropped to less than half its size in the 25 years I’ve been a member there. 

My friends are amazed I still call myself a practicing Christian. They consider the hypocrisy, the fundamentalist, evangelical jihads that support a racist, a liar, a philanderer, and woman abuser in power, a cruel narcissistic would-be tyrant who calls himself a Presbyterian. This is why our churches are failing. We have forgotten Christ. Christ was about love, forgiveness — a gentle man who abhorred violence. A rebel surrounded by a vicious Roman occupation and a rule-bound, power-mad organized religion. They killed him for daring to point to a different idea — a God of love, compassion, healing, empathy. 

This is the divine person Christians have worshiped over 2,000 years, about whom organized religion — and yes, I include the Presbyterian structure — has made up rules and myths such as walking on water, rising from the dead, casting some of us into hellfire, including unbaptized babies, to say nothing of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the endless stream of wars fought in his name. All these ridiculous and blasphemous ideas and adventures in the name of the Prince of Peace.

I think, in order to save our precious Jesus and precious little church, we must get back to the divinity who inspired us originally. The Jesus of love, of forgiveness, of turning the other cheek, of total nonviolence. I think, as Jesus said, God is love and love is indeed God. We must remember this or our Christianity and our beautiful Springs church will perish.

Bill Henderson is an elder at the Springs Presbyterian Church. He edits the annual Pushcart Prize, and his latest memoir is “Cathedral.”