Environment

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet — one-tenth the size of the average new American house — and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap — that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

There is no doubt that fracking has created many needed jobs for the economy. However, wouldn't it be more sensible to see what possible damages fracking could do to the environment before we began doing it instead of just barging ahead for profit? I guess it is the American attitude of "shoot first and ask questions later. " Clem Gavenas, Carney Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Inside Westminster Abbey, eight 20-foot-tall live trees lined the center aisle during the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William. The trees transformed the space, doing what even the most elaborate floral arrangement could not — providing a natural, living sense of permanence and an air of drama. The move was unexpected, unpretentious and bold. A potted tree on your patio or deck can have the same effect. While not every tree is well-suited for a container, there are a surprising number of options, ranging from crape myrtles to hollies.

Peter Jensen 's editorial on conservatives' attitude toward environmental protection is misleading ("Don't save the planet," May 4). The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stressed the importance of the marketing message. Conservatives react more favorably to marketing messages that stress energy-efficiency or energy-independence than they do to saving the environment. The study does not suggest that conservatives as a group do not support energy-efficient products.

Usually I recycle Marta Mossburg's ultra-conservative rants without reading them. But her column "Kids' TV: last bastion of liberal utopia," Aug. 17, was so outrageous, I had to respond. Let me start with this sentence: "Individualism is bad, the collective - and especially the environment - are good. " Individualism is not bad, but it is foolish. Imagine a single person demanding an eight-hour-day. The corporate officials would have been roaring with laughter. In a time when a presidential candidate opines that corporations are people, we better unite as the corporate elite are destroying the middle class and slashing the poor's safety net. I have no idea how anyone would think the environment is bad. We have another presidential candidate who is a climate chaos denier.

Say no to fracking if you don't want flammable drinking water ("Say yes to LNG," Nov. 13). We shouldn't ruin our drinking water just to deliver liquid natural gas to China. Would they run their tankers on natural gas? The oil is running out, so the cost of transporting anything is rising dramatically. China is a long way away and won't be able to afford it if we don't buy their plastic junk. Germany recently acknowledged that 99 percent of its oil reserves were imaginary, and as a result it has rapidly became a world leader in solar power.

In Dan Rodricks ' otherwise intriguing discussion of the future of Sparrows Point ("Re-imagining Sparrows Point," Nov. 6) I found the total absence of any mention of environmental impact startling. I believe that we need to include environmental interests at the beginning so it is built into any development plan, not put on as a somewhat unwelcome afterthought. Natalie Dandekar

Once upon a time, we couldn't ask people not to smoke in our presence. Once upon a time, we couldn't ask people not to drive while drunk. But slowly and with great effort, cultural expectations, public will and the law changed. Through a groundswell of well-managed and well-financed educational campaigns, our attitudes about what was right and what was wrong evolved. Ultimately, both smoking and drunken driving were seen not as private acts protected by the right of self-determination, but as threats to public health that should be regulated on behalf of public welfare.

Thank you for the excellent article about Bill Stromberg and the artists at Charlestown retirement community ("One-man art exhibition features many sides of life," Catonsville Times, July 6). The exhibit of 13 of his works is stunning. Due in part to the fine article by Lauren Fulbright, there was a large crowd at the opening reception on Sunday. Those of us who live at Charlestown are fortunate to have three art studios to work and create in a community of other artists.

Maryland could be the first state in the nation to allow a new class of "for-benefit" corporations if a measure before the House of Delegates receives final approval. The designation, which has already been approved in the Senate, would allow the director of a company to weigh community, environmental and societal factors when making determining the "best interest" of the company. "It is evolving as a national movement," said Del. Brian J. Feldman, a Montgomery County Democrat, during a Saturday debate on the measure.

I am really getting tired of the invective and sarcasm shown by the likes of The Sun and MSNBC ("Don't save the planet" May 3). It is less and less logic and more just "shouting down the enemy". I guess Andrew Green , Rachel Maddow, and others are reading from the same playbook. I am for a balanced budget, the 2nd Amendment, the death penalty in some circumstances, and a fetus' right to live in the third trimester (or later as some liberals seem to think it's OK to terminate kids outside the womb)

My husband and I recycle everything possible. We use cloth bags rather than paper or plastic, we are organ donors, we compost our kitchen scraps, and we even take The Sun online rather than waste paper ("Don't save the planet" May 3). But we do not - will not - use "screwy" light bulbs. By the government's own admission, they are a severe biohazard if they are broken. That alone ought to give any sensible person reason to question them. They cannot be used in three-way lights, or with a dimmer switch.

To the age-old question of how many conservatives does it take to screw in a light bulb, we now have a definitive answer: Just one, but it will take him weeks to chase down a vintage incandescent bulb because he won't touch an energy-efficient one. At least that's the obvious conclusion to draw from a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, put together by researchers from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, asked hundreds of people to pass judgment on light bulb options.

Talk about leading by example -- the Maryland Department of the Environment announced Monday that it would begin collecting food scraps at its Baltimore headquarters for composting. The Earth Day announcement comes on the heels of Howard County launching its own food-scrap processing facility, which I covered here for The Baltimore Sun. MDE will give its 900-plus employees the option to compost their uneaten food at the agency's main offices in Montgomery Park. Officials there say they hope in the effort's inaugural year to divert more than 6 tons of waste that might otherwise have gone to an incinerator or landfill.

Editor: Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has led to enormous growth in understanding the consequences we face if we do not take care of our natural resources. It has led to more action to protect our planet's land, water, air, wildlife and human beings, and it has strengthened farmers' and ranchers' already strong commitment to being good environmental stewards. Farmers observe Earth Day every day. Where asphalt and pavement turn to gravel and dirt, you will find men and women rising early, greeting the day and working the earth.

Situated in the city's Bolton Hill neighborhood is a relatively new development of brick townhouses solidly placed among the late Victorian and early-20th-century structures that once housed the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Woodrow Wilson and, more recently, pianist Leon Fleisher. This little enclave within an enclave is called Lions Park Fountains. The two-story houses hug the periphery of an open, brick-paved courtyard with benches and fountains. Large statues of lions guard the entrance to the 1980 development.

Laurel residents Thomas Smith, a student at Atholton High, and Alexandra Barrett, a student at Reservoir High, were among 250 individuals selected as National Youth Delegates to the Washington Youth Summit on the Environment, June 24-29 at George Mason University, in Virginia. They will represent Maryland and were chosen based on academic accomplishments and a demonstrated interest and excellence in leadership in the sciences and conservation studies.

For four years, Jack McBride ran the offense, scored goals, and absorbed stick checks as an attackman at Princeton. But this season, he has exchanged his black and orange jersey for the powder-blue uniforms given by North Carolina. And with the No. 12 Tar Heels scheduled to meet the No. 20 Tigers at the Konica Minolta Face-Off Classicat M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on Saturday, McBride will meet his former Princeton teammates as opponents. And he's not expecting a warm reception.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," I say, quoting Shakespeare's Henry V, the breach being not the hole in the wall at Harfleur, but the gap between who Marylanders are as recyclers and who we could be. How's that for reducing a fine literary allusion into a mundane practicality? But I mean well. I'm talking about the gap between being pretty good recyclers of bottles and cans and being nearly excellent recyclers of same. Into that breach comes the bottle-deposit bill, now before the General Assembly.

George Fenwick's article on cats as an invasive species ("House cats: The destructive invasive species purring on your lap" Feb. 26) was filled with misinformation. It is easy to blame cats for environmental degradation; it is far more difficult to place the blame where it belongs. While cats kill birds, the threat they pose is in no way equal to the threat posed by human-caused habitat loss, climate change, or pollution. These are the threats to wildlife that we should be worrying about today.