The rate of new cases of Covid-19 has slowed on the East End since the end of January, but that does not mean that the public can be any less cautious. Only about a tenth of the Suffolk County population had been fully vaccinated as of this week, well below the number that would begin to stop the spread.
After four years of federal inaction, climate activists are pushing for action on the single-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, transportation accounts for over a quarter of the total and it is growing. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, for the last 30 years, emissions from transportation increased more than any other category. In East Hampton Town, transportation is clearly on the minds of a committee that drafted the town board’s recent climate emergency declaration.
A beleaguered Norway maple in the Star office driveway was brought down this week. How it had survived where it was, surrounded by bluestone pavement, was a testament to these trees’ toughness. In recent years it had begun to shed large branches, which hung up ominously above parked cars. But it also shaded the south side of the building in the summer, providing a screen of green leaves between my office window and the rest of the world.
‘Water, in some respects, is like the Gospel, free, but he who diverts it from its accustomed channels will, in the end, find it expensive.”
These words of excellent wisdom were penned in 1920 by a graybeard named Samuel H. Miller, who grew up in what is now the Baker House, and printed as a letter to the editor in the March 2 edition of this newspaper.