Clouded thinking makes for a hazy future
Post Star by Ken Tingley
March 27, 2005
They were flying kites on Lake George earlier this winter as part of the Winter Carnival.
The temperature was near 40, and there was enough of a breeze to keep the kite aloft and the kids busy running across the frozen lake.
All around us, the snowmobiles roared, as they usually do during the Winter Carnival. It was then that I noticed something I had never seen in these parts.
Hanging between the hills on each side of the lake was this dirty brown haze.
I squinted and focused again. It couldn’t be.
Could Lake George really have smog?
It was probably just the weather conditions that day, combined with an unusually high number of motorized vehicles out on the lake, but it still gave me a jolt. I hoped I was not looking at Lake George’s future.
I hardly consider myself an environmentalist. I’ve spent the better part of the past two decades driving an SUV. I’m pretty sure the air I breathe and the water I drink will last through my life, but I wouldn’t be surprised if my son’s generation starts to see some real problems. But, to be honest, I’m not losing sleep over it.
I am convinced there is a real threat to the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere, that acid rain is doing some irreparable damage to our natural resources right here in our back yard, and that we all need to be more energy conscious in general.
When I went shopping recently for a new car, I took a hard look at the new hybrid gas/electric cars. It wasn’t just the gas savings I was interested in, but the fact that these cars were cleaner, too. Consumer magazines gave the cars high marks. Considering the price of gas and our dependence on foreign oil, I wondered why someone hadn’t set a goal for every car to be a hybrid by 2015.
More recently, Barton Mines proposed a plan to construct a dozen enormous wind turbines near Gore Mountain to generate cheap electricity. It seemed like a no-brainer. Here was a chance for environmentalists in the Adirondack Park to put up or shut up. This was a project that would provide perfectly clean energy in exchange for 12 structures that, granted, were large, but would also be on a mountain that has already undergone significant development.
Yet there are those who oppose the project because it will change the view.
Stupidest thing I’ve heard since the last Hummer commercial.
It’s things like wind power and hybrid cars that are going to help slow the poisoning of our environment.
If we don’t all get behind that, someday our children won’t be able to see those lovely green hills because of the brown haze.
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