Spellbinding Theater Amagansett September 26, 2014 David, Off Broadway is right here on Main Street in East Hampton. No need to travel to the big city, when most Tuesday nights (check Star listings), the JDTLab at Guild Hall is providing some of the best theater you’ll see on or off Broadway. Two recent Tuesday performances my wife and I caught, Joe Brondo’s “Bluebirds” and, this past Tuesday‚ “Chicken-Fried Ciccone,” written and performed by J. Stephen Brantley, were both terrific, spellbinding theater. Josh Gladstone, the Lab’s creator, is giving East End audiences a workshop devoted to fostering East End performing artists. All we can say is get to Guild Hall for this free series of performances. If past performances are any indication of future performances, you’re in for a theater treat. ROBERT WICK Time to Reflect East Hampton September 29, 2014 To the Editor: I opened a retail business in East Hampton on behalf of myself and two partners on June 28, 1982. We didn’t receive our alcohol license until July 1. On our first day we had gross sales of $1.99; day two was $6.78 (almost 200-percent growth), day three back to $1.99. On March 1, 1983, we had $22,000 of inventory and $83,000 of debt. My wife and I invested our life savings ($15,000 plus another $15,000 I borrowed from my brother, all personal debt still intact). I came home from work one night in March, after working a 13-hour day, to see my wife and 2-year-old daughter sleeping in the bed. I stared, wondering how to tell her my folly ruined their lives. Years later, my younger brother, also a principal in a small business, asked me if I knew why we succeeded when most new businesses fail. My profound response was a shrug of my shoulders. His reasoning: “We had no choice.” Fear of failure is indeed a great motivator. Fast forward a third of a century and it’s time to reflect. I will name no names of those who have enriched me. They would fill this newspaper. Being raised a Southampton kid, I came to East Hampton with some trepidation. The people of Bonac have made me feel more at home than I ever felt on the other side of Wainscott. It is you who have enabled my wife and me to help our three children with their education that they may pursue their goals, which they are doing with determination and success. In light of my recent circumstances, they are what’s left of my pride. Because of those circumstances, it’s time for me to go. I am most fortunate to have a co-worker of 15 years and a respected friend of 30 years to carry on the business in its tradition. I learned long ago that a business survives the loss of any employee, no matter how integral, and that includes me. My sincere thanks to all in East Hampton who have supported and enlightened me. Your concern and understanding in my time of trial is no more than another manifestation of what you have done in my 33 years of business in serving you. The fond memories will be my comfort. Sincerely, WILLIAM C. HURLEY Mr. Hurley is the former owner of Peconic Beverage in East Hampton. He pleaded guilty early this year to drunken driving and other charges stemming from a 2013 crash on Route 114 in East Hampton in which a 6-year-old boy and his mother were injured. He is to be sentenced on Oct. 14. Ed. Sustainable Fisheries East Hampton September 29, 2014 Dear David, On a beautiful Saturday in September, over 70 folks gathered at the Coast restaurant in Montauk to discuss sustainable fisheries for Concerned Citizens of Montauk’s “American Catch: Sustainable Fisheries, Getting It Right” forum. Paul Greenberg, the New York Times best-selling author of “American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood” and “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food,” moderated 3 panels with 11 distinguished fisheries, conservation, and seafood supply and preparation experts. This forum is part of C.C.O.M.’s ongoing work to reconnect consumers to fishing families and conservation and to continue the important dialogue about the future of our diet and the oceans. We can’t thank Paul enough for working with C.C.O.M. on this forum and for doing an outstanding job moderating our panels. Sustainable shellfish and our near-shore fisheries were discussed by Nathaniel Miller, John Dunne, Michael Doall, and Mike Martinson. Peter Hoffman, Jason Weiner, and Sean Barrett talked about seafood and the restaurant industry moving toward sustainability, and Carl Safina, Bonnie Brady, Michael Frisk, and Dan Farnham conversed on creating sustainable fisheries. We gratefully thank all of them for sharing their time and knowledge with us on what was truly a magnificent and informative Saturday afternoon in Montauk. C.C.O.M. would also like to thank the Coast restaurant for hosting our event. Tony Berkhofer, its executive chef and owner, prepared an excellent, bountiful, and sustainable luncheon for all of our guests. The food, ambiance, and staff couldn’t have been better. Special thanks to Perry Haberman from Montauk Bookshop for providing books for the event. Don’t worry if you feel like you missed out on an amazing day chocked full of fine fish talk: It was filmed and will be broadcast on WVVH-TV Hamptons television this Saturday and Sunday from 7:30 to 9 a.m. on Cablevision Channel 78, UHF Channel 50, Verizon FiOS Channel 14, Time Warner’s Video on Demand Channel 1111, and will be web-streamed at wvvh.tv. It will also be on youtube.com/VVHTV. It will air on LTV Channel 20, and will be available on C.C.O.M.’s website in the coming weeks. Sincerely, DEBORAH KLUGHERS Fisheries Coordinator Concerned Citizens of Montauk Civic Conversations Rye, N.Y. September 24, 2014 Dear Mr. Rattray, It’s nice to be on the sending end of a letter to an editor, doubly so to be able to share a compliment. After our daughter’s recent wedding, my wife and I spent two glorious September days in Amagansett. Most of that time was spent at Atlantic Avenue Beach, but we had a chance to wander the hamlet a bit and to take a drive through Springs in the evening light. I enjoyed reading your fine paper, especially the reporting of one T.E. McMorrow, a fellow member of the police-blotter brigade. I am off to the local P.D. myself in an hour or so. Interestingly, villages across the Sound are having a number of the same civic conversations: how to balance our heritage with growth, deciding how best to use and preserve our shoreline, how to maintain and improve our schools, downsizing the deer population. Returning from our trip, I reread the beginning of Peter Matthiessen’s “Men’s Lives.” One of the first things I read was the author’s thanks to the staff of your paper for its help back in the ’80s. It came as no surprise. Community newspapers are challenged on the one side by the costs of printing and distribution, and on the other by the rise of local blogs and online networks like Patch. While all that is going on, readers still seem to respond to good stories, well told, whether they are short or longish, and great images, like the ones on your Sept. 18 page one. Thanks for continuing to provide your readers with what they value. I wish you much success in the months and years ahead. Sincerely, TOM McDERMOTT Editor The Rye Record Access Under Siege Oakland, Calif. September 26, 2014 Dear Mr. Rattray, A few days after The Star reported that lawsuits over access to, and ownership of, beaches along Napeague were headed for trial, headlines here in Northern California glared the result of similar litigation: “Billionaire ordered to allow beach access.” That billionaire, Vinod Kholsa, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, had blocked access through his property to a remote beach south of San Francisco popular with surfers. He claimed the beach in front of his estate was private property. A judge ruled otherwise. Appeals are expected. Sounds a lot like what is going on with the owners of the White Sands and the bunch that The Star collectively refers to as Seaview. While your Sept. 22 story on Justice Jerry Garguilo’s recent decision in those related suits was, to be kind, murky in the way your newspaper is often exceedingly murky, the point came across. The rights of beach access and public ownership of land below the seaward edge of the beach grass in East Hampton have never been in more peril. The difference between the case here and the Napeague cases is that the California proceedings were well covered by multiple metro dailies (including my employer), television stations, radio, and websites. The Napeague case, and the transparency that coverage of it will bring to it, will mostly fall to, well, you. That raises concerns that potential last-minute deals, favoritism, political tricks, and other clandestine actions could easily pass unreported. Given that the questions before Garguilo are headed for what will presumably be a bench trial, one hopes that The Star will provide reliable, readable, and aggressive coverage throughout the proceedings. (Maybe one of your reporters will read the filings in the case. Maybe the paper will even post them for public consumption.) Please do not miss a piece of paper or word said in court, on or off the official record. How about posting daily stories and Tweeting from court? As much as good and unstilted journalism seems to make you queasy, David, this is the time for it. The issue of the wealthy wishing, against law and practice, that the beaches in front of their homes were private property has been on a slow boil toward this moment since, as I wrote to you last year, Jerry Gagne threw Juan Trippe into the Georgica surf in the early ’70s. East Hampton needs its newspaper now. The Times will only, at best, do a drive-by. Newsday will get its facts wrong. The other tabloids won’t care about facts. My criticisms of your journalism are admittedly harsh, but they come from the perspective of 30 years immersion in newspaper work and aversion to the mediocrity routinely exhibited on your pages. The Star’s habitual disappointments, its one-source stories, its weekly lack of salience, can be undone a tad if this trial and the people involved and the disputes at play are well covered. But even in writing about Garguilo’s decision, you couldn’t be bothered to identify the named plaintiffs in the case, such as Marc Helie, Robert Higgins, Robert Cooperman, Robert Cristofaro, and others. At least you’ve named Bernie Kiembock as a protagonist in the White Sands matter in past stories. But of course you petted the back of his hand as you did it, as if peddling hammers and hacksaws somehow creates a certain intellectual status and right to deference. Is he an advertiser? You know that nothing short of heritage is at stake in these suits. We have those who believe, based on wealth and power, that their domains extend to all they see, even the horizon. When they can’t rid their summer vistas of those who might otherwise mow their lawns, clean out their drains, or service their furnaces, they attack law and custom. Now that there are no seiners in rusty trucks towing dories along the beach, maybe with a .20-gauge loaded with rock salt tucked behind the seat, as one captain carried to ward off complainers, they seem to assume victory. I am reminded, though, of one mid-’70s summer when I briefly worked assembling cardboard fish crates at Stuart’s Seafood, where fish were packed and shipped to the city. One evening a truck arrived from New York carrying a load of bluefish that had been sent westward that very morning after a good haul. But the market was glutted and the mongers along Fulton Street ordered the catch returned to Amagansett. It was nearly unthinkable — fish sent back, the longstanding agreements between catcher and seller shattered. Back then, fish were meant to only go west, like the Maidstone Club set come Labor Day. They were not to be returned, no matter the market. A call was made across the highway to Poseyville and a few of the seiners trudged over and began to add fresh ice to the crates as the truck driver walked in a widening circle nearby. When they were finished and the driver had been told rather directly to take the fish back to Manhattan, one of the men, Calvin Lester if memory serves, yanked open the last box on the truck (and thus likely to be the first opened when the truck arrived at market). In it he placed a piece of thick cardboard upon which he scrawled a two-word message. The first word was a short, common synonym for fornication. The second was the word “you.” I wonder if those trying to claim the beach as their own against so many decades of local laws have ever truly contemplated what it is they are attempting. Imagine for a moment if these suits had arisen before the state banned haulseining. Imagine the response of the guys from Poseyville if told some well-heeled idiot sued to stop them from, as you quoted from the Benson agreement, “spread(ing) their ‘nett’ upon the sand.” But seining’s dead. Billy Joel, author of its forgotten anthem, has become old and irrelevant, and Mr. Matthiessen is no longer here to inform us of Men’s Lives. All that’s left is the right of unfettered access by all to East Hampton’s beaches, by foot or vehicle, and it is under siege. It shouldn’t go without a fight, or without the practice of good journalism. Those with the arrogance to build houses beach-side, or invest in oceanfront hotels in the face of the overwhelming science on man-made climate change and rising sea levels (but who probably don’t own many hybrid or electric cars among them), fail to understand the backlash they face, both from nature, eventually, and from public opinion presently. Like the mongers on Fulton Street saw in that note 40 years ago, hell hath no fury like a Bonacker scorned. Newspaper readers retain a bit of fury, too, David. Best you dig in here and do some good work. THOMAS PEELE Lecturer U.C. Berkeley School of Journalism Beach Rights Bridgehampton September 22, 2014 To the Editor, Be careful, East Hampton residents. In Southampton, we lost a big beach access due to the town attorney missing a trial date. Keep pressure on your town, county, and state officials, or you will lose your beach rights and who knows what else, when these rich, selfish people get together to make this world their own. J.L. SMITH A List of the Steps Montauk September 29, 2014 Dear David, In 2011 I began the process to install a simple shed on my property. My contacts with the Town of East Hampton Building Department were addressed by courteous and knowledgeable employees. After three years I completed all the necessary steps and installed the shed. Now, two years later, I received a notice from the department that my permit had expired. A call to the department revealed that a final survey and certificate of occupancy for the shed are required! I do not object to any of the requirements that the town feels are necessary to ensure that our codes and regulations are followed. I object to the department not being willing to provide a list of the steps necessary to complete the project; even when asked, they could not provide a written list. A list of required homeowner actions, such as surveys, inspections, and C. of O., is not difficult to create and would help the taxpayer to complete the process more quickly. Yours truly, DAN BRIGANTI Our New Neighbors Montauk September 25, 2014 To the Editor, Our town — our new “neighbors.” Months ago, I sent The Star a note with a cyber-overview of a multilevel, multi-house “development” in progress. It now is completed and stands where an old cottage once sat. This week I stood on a lot similar in size and adjacent to it and took a photo. The crowded cluster of new homes (?) blatantly displays affluence and excess as it spreads across the square footage of its building lot. It is following in the gilded footsteps of the other McMansions that have exploded all over our wee town. Beautiful structures. Clearly some architect’s dreams. A landscaper’s dream, too (in this case!), as its privacy is now protected by multiple new plantings. A passing boon as well for the workers who toiled daily and then went home to their own older houses — comparable in size, perhaps, to “second house” above. (That is, if they’re lucky enough to meet their mortgage payments or monthly rent in this now outrageously costly “scene” that has overtaken a sleepy fishing village.) It all leaves one wondering: How did it all happen? Who allowed such square footage of building space to fill such square footage of lot size? And why? Who will fill those rooms? Will their occupancy generate a new community? Will that new occupancy include volunteers for our Fire Department? Or new E.M.S. members? Or local workers of any variety? Or Meals on Wheels drivers? Or outreach volunteers? Or community garden participants? Or C.C.O.M. activists? When they are filled, will the other locals mentioned above ever be welcomed in to meet the new folk? Will their kids go to our schools? And why do all these mini-megaliths now have mechanical gates? Whom do they wish to keep out? (Actually, the gate concept is a bit judgmental of the locals, who may not have ever seen a gate except at the Lighthouse!) How is it that there’s so much money? Why is it that there’s so much disparity? Oh, on and on and on. Just one final word. The new neighbors never contacted the existing adjacent neighbor — as some more thoughtful new neighbors have done in the past. They had to know that their buildings would obstruct her view, as well as alter the architectural tone of our community. And didn’t they realize that the massive, but stately, stone chimneys on eye level with her old house would spew smoke in her direction when the whimsical winds of Montauk so dictated? Never mind! They may not be here in the winter, when hearth fires add to the warmth of so many of our homes. Ah, but wait. Maybe they will, after all. Helicopter flight is so affordable. For some of our new neighbors. GERT MURPHY Automobility Sag Harbor September 29, 2014 Dear David, In June of last year, a 14-year-old girl from Springs was killed while riding her bicycle near the CVS pharmacy in East Hampton. I recently had a look at the site where she was fatally struck, and saw no sign of efforts to make the area safer for the most vulnerable street users — cyclists and pedestrians. Judging by last week’s Star, the most significant development regarding traffic in East Hampton Village is the addition of a fourth lane for cars and trucks on Newtown Lane. Adding road capacity for automobiles leads to increased auto traffic, in an effect researchers call “induced demand.” More high-speed auto traffic means increased danger to people on foot or bikes. I believe there is another way, that villages like East Hampton can encourage people to use healthier, more environmentally friendly modes of transportation, rather than remaining caught in a vicious cycle of ever-increasing automobility. East Hampton has set an ambitious agenda for sustainable energy, and I believe it can also embrace goals for safer, healthier, and cleaner transportation. Sincerely, JONAS HAGEN Bike Lanes Springs September 29, 2014 Dear David, On the same day that my last letter was printed in The Star, the town board took up a resolution that points out the specific and general issues that I raised. My letter commented on the need for more action by elected officials to create safer bicycle routes, and secondly, began an examination of how the town and county should partner in these kinds of projects. There was an implication that both governments should be doing more. On Sept. 18, the town board voted to request that the county make official bike lanes on Long Lane when it is repaved. This is an old topic that has been discussed by the town’s former bicycle committee, the town Planning Department, and Legislator Jay Schneiderman. New York State has done an excellent job with its bike lanes from Sag Harbor to Stephen Hand’s Path. But the state bike lanes become progressively smaller as they approach the village, and the bicycling becomes progressively more dangerous. A reasonable second route, especially for those going to the village center or the high school, is to have bike lanes on Long Lane, along with a connecting route from state Route 114 to Long Lane. The resolution makes no mention of the need for a connecting route along Stephen Hand’s Path. That connecting route will not be easy to construct, but I fear that the resolution avoids mentioning it because it would currently be the town’s responsibility to pay for it. Legislator Schneiderman has rightly stated last March that the county would consider making bike lanes on Long Lane but wants the town to make connections to them. It is hard to applaud East Hampton for asking other governments to do things for the town if the town does not take some responsibility for what is needed. The second part of my previous letter mentioned how Suffolk might contribute to these and similar projects that are on town land. The basic idea is simple: We send the county huge amounts of sales and tourist tax and they give back just a fraction to the town, and often in areas that do not lower our own taxes. We deserve more. This is an old complaint. It will be hard to accomplish, but I propose we start with a demand that half of the 3-percent tourist tax be returned to help fund tourism-oriented projects. Part of the county’s legislative intent for the tax is “supporting its cultural programs and activities relevant to the continuation and enhancement of the tourism industry.” It is both unfair and shortsighted of the county to not reinvest at least half of the money into tourist activities that create these windfalls. Another example of this shortsightedness is the county’s reluctance to be the full financial sponsor for the maintenance of the Army Corps of Engineers project for downtown Montauk. If the beach erodes, tourism dollars erode, and the county loses along with the town. The first place to start is to demand an accounting from the county on what East Hampton contributes and what we get back in direct benefits from this tax. The financial numbers should be easy to calculate, but I have not been able to find that information. Is the information so difficult to find because it would be so infuriating to our residents? ZACHARY COHEN Weekend Hunting East Hampton September 29, 2014 Dear David, While I applaud the East Hampton Village Preservation Society in guiding the village board with cash contributions and donations for a nonlethal method of reducing our deer population, I do wish that other viable alternative birth control methods that have proven effective in other towns and states would be considered — it would be less traumatic to the animals. Our townwide hunting season is right around the corner and new hunting guidelines and changes in regulations are being enacted and reviewed. I hope our town board will make the sane and safe decision not to extend hunting (either gun or bow) during the weekends in January or any other month. To limit our town citizens and visitors from walking and hiking in the woods during the weekends in the winter months is just not right. Many times it is the trails in our woods that allow us the only place to get some out-of-doors time away from the frosty, whipping winds during the long winter months. BETSY PETROSKI Not Successes East Hampton September 27, 2014 To the Editor, For how many years should the East End provide a congressman with the opportunity to achieve something? At the Hampton Bays debate that I attended, our feckless Congressman Tim Bishop attributed his lack of success in having federal post-Sandy funds spent in his district on federal red tape. He stated that the fishermen in his district are hurt by federal bureaucracy and that he intercedes on their behalf. He blamed others for failures in immigration policy while stating that he has an un-enacted plan for its reform. At what point is it Tim Bishop’s job to be responsible? Where is our congressman’s drive? We keep hearing excuses, not of successes. Mr. Bishop continues his fervent support of President Obama’s administration even as its policies adversely affect his district. It is time for someone else to represent the East End. We need energy in Congress that isn’t generated by hot air. Tom Knobel Chairman East Hampton Republican Committee A Carbon Tax Bellport September 24, 2014 To the Editor: Thanks to Christopher Walsh for his recent coverage of the People’s Climate March. I agree with Don Matheson and Dr. Hansen that a revenue-neutral carbon tax is needed — now. The good news? Revenue-neutral carbon tax is a market-based, politically feasible solution that both liberals and conservatives can support. Two former Republican Treasury secretaries, Hank Paulson and George Shultz, are now calling for a carbon tax. Conservative economists such as Art Laffer, Greg Mankiw, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin all agree that free enterprise can fix the climate problem, but only if we fix the distortion in the marketplace that gives climate polluters free access to our skies. Here’s what a carbon tax will do: tax fossil fuels, based on the CO2 content of those fuels, at the first point of sale. One hundred percent of the revenue gets returned to the public. This rebate will protect households from the rising costs associated with the carbon tax. Not only will this tax cut carbon emissions in half in 20 years, it will also add 2.8 million jobs to the economy, according to a 2014 study by Regional Economic Models. To learn more, or to get involved, check out Citizens’ Climate Lobby. I’ve been impressed by C.C.L.’s respectful method as well as its focused mission. The local C.C.L. chapter meets regularly; it’s nonpartisan and well organized. C.C.L.’s sound plan for restoring a stable climate has restored my own hope for the future. The tide is turning. We need solutions. It’s time for a revenue-neutral carbon tax. JENNIFER GREENE Twisted Balance Sheet Amagansett September 25, 2014 To the Editor: The climate march in New York was the largest in history, in the brief time scale since humans have interrupted the weather patterns of the world. Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization, famously responded that it would be a good idea. It is Western civilization, led by the technological society and its rain forest felling, atmospheric carbonization, and oceanic acidifying temper, that has upturned the planet’s normal metabolism. It is a Godzilla economy called globalization that levels and homogenizes tribal people and evaporates species. How on earth will 11 billion people survive on this planet by 2100 if we keep cutting rain forests so that a very wealthy producer of coffee can have palm oil for its cranberry bliss bars? Will the business mind of bigger is better prevail, or will the earth’s tired and poor and pullulating masses of seven billion be able to convince the relatively well-to-do 1 percent that the earth has a fever, and that humanity, as a whole, needs heart surgery. If Gaia could speak she would say, do not do to me, what you would not wish me to do to you! The march came 10 years a little late. Under the aegis of a president who stole two elections, the world lost a decade that may have lost us the century, and by extension posterity. Now is the time for businessmen to look themselves squarely in the mirror and be reminded of the fantastic Ponzi scheme they have contrived, not just with Wall Street’s gambling habit and the egregious and shameful practices that the profit-seeking so covet, but also what they have done to the real economy of the planet, which is its ecology. One can bargain for more open space on the East End of Long Island, but how will we ever rectify the twisted balance sheet of the carbon cycle we have created? I have heard it spoken, here in the West, that due to the great debt we have incurred, America’s national parks may well have to go on the chopping block and be sold to gas, oil, and fracking ventures! Where exactly will children of America midcentury go if this happens? America, let’s be clear, was never the home of the free or the land of the brave, except as the native peoples understood real freedom. They say we have until 2020 to turn things around. The Paris conference on climate change next year must be the definitive statement on changing course. Belching smokestacks must soon become a thing of the past. They will one day be made a criminal offense. But even that action will not bring back the melting snowpack. We can only hope to mitigate the greatest temperature rise in human civilization. We do not yet have a civil nation, but the most violent society on earth, flummoxed and anesthetized by the digital and cybernetic stare. We invade countries with impunity and make celebrities our arbiters of taste and morality and immorality. The children are made to swallow outdated S.A.T. tests that do not provide any sense of the upheaval our planet is going through. Behold the words of Norman Mailer, “Behind this machine comes a century of maniacs and a heat which looks to consume the earth.” We need vision across the entire spectrum of endeavor now, and a thorough education on ecology, sustainability, and the life sciences in all of America’s schools before the wasteland of T.S. Eliot becomes fact, not poetry! In order to salvage what is left of earth, let’s remember that it is composed of the letters that compose another word — heart! CYRIL CHRISTO Marched in Hopes South Setauket September 24, 2014 To the Editor: A “protester”? Me? I saw “An Inconvenient Truth” and wondered how much time world leaders had to do what was required. As a new mom, I read Bill McKibben’s Rolling Stone piece “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” and despaired that those leaders would step up in time to help my son, so I became a Climate Reality Project volunteer to raise public awareness. But while large-scale solutions exist, I saw no way to have direct influence. And then I found Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and found hope. As a nonpartisan group advocating direct, in-person, and in-print lobbying of our national representatives for a single legislative proposal, our activities don’t usually include mass protests like the People’s Climate March last Sunday. Pregnant with my second child, I personally feared unpredictable crowds, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, even winding up arrested or facing career consequences. Like many C.C.L. members, I have never seen myself as a radical or agitator. With support from my fellow volunteers, and realizing what is at stake for my children, I overcame my fears and marched in hopes that others would find the same inspiration I did upon learning that Citizens’ Climate Lobby has a plan, we’re making progress, and we need their help. But I was inspired in turn! I met an 8-year-old boy who was already participating in his second climate march. The retired NASA scientist and climate advocate James Hansen and his grandchildren did C.C.L. the honor of marching with our organization. We waited two hours to begin moving because a diverse crowd — 400,000 by some estimates — was quadruple the expected attendance. My personal tipping point from concern to action came only a year ago. Likewise, this massive outpouring of public outrage could help Congress find new political courage to “come out of the climate closet” and do what they know, deep down, is best for their families and mine. Your voice can help make that happen. I hope you will join me. JEANNE BRUNSON Plant-Based Entrees East Hampton September 23, 2014 Dear Editor, On Sunday, Sept. 20, hundreds of thousands marched throughout the world demanding action on climate change. One hundred twenty world leaders gathered in New York for the United Nations Summit on Climate Change. What can we do? A 2006 U.N. report estimated that meat production accounts for 18 percent of man-made greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that the contribution may be closer to 50 percent. The meat industry generates carbon dioxide by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to confine, feed, transport, and slaughter animals. The much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively. In an environmentally sustainable world, wind, solar, and other pollution-free energy sources must gradually replace polluting fossil fuels. Similarly, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and grains must replace polluting meat and dairy products. The large variety of widely available plant-based entrees, lunch meats, veggie burgers, cheeses, and ice creams can certainly help. Our next trip to the supermarket is a great opportunity to start the transition to a sustainable world. Our favorite Internet search engine offers ample product lists, recipes, and dietary tips. Sincerely, EDWIN HORATH
Published 4 years ago
Last updated 4 years ago
Letters to the Editor: 10.02.14
October 1, 2014