Unfettered Letters

Preventing light pollution

I can’t thank you enough for the fantastic article on light pollution (11/10, A-1, “Spotlight shines on light pollution”).

I have an observatory in south Kansas City and have used the telescope for school trips, benefits for local charities, and occasional strolls through the heavens with my own family. It is pure joy to see the stars with your own eyes and feel a real connection with something much bigger than our own lives here on Earth.

Kansas City has set a great example by replacing many streetlights with power-saving downward lights. Private groups are getting the message, too. A large church recently moved into our neighborhood. After talking with their pastor about lighting, he agreed that pointing the parking lot lights at the ground would save his church money and preserve our night sky. The church’s entire parking lot produces less light pollution than one misdirected garage floodlight.

As more and more homeowners and cities get the message about sensible night lighting, they might discover more stars in the sky and a few extra dollars in their pockets.

Thanks again to The Kansas City Star from the Kansas City stars.

James A. Case
Owner, Hound Hill Observatory
Kansas City

Fighting factory farms’ stench

We commend The Star in supporting restrictions on placement of factory hog and chicken farms near state historic sites (9/2, Opinion, “Tougher laws needed to regulate hog farms”). However, folks visiting historic sites can leave when the unbelievable stench rolls in.

Those of us farmers who have had the misfortune to have factory hog farms come into our areas have no such luxury. We have to endure, while Department of Natural Resources does nothing.

My farm and residence is six miles from 140,000 hogs and four miles from 80,000 hogs. The factory hog farm proposed for near Arrow Rock was for far fewer.

Citizen Legal Environmental Action Network represents about 70 farm families who have fought factory hog farms for over a decade. Sadly, we still have to endure the stink.

Rolf Christen
Secretary CLEAN (Citizen Legal Environmental Action Network)
Green City, Mo.

Time to get green, KC

Kansas City is cleaning up the city, trying to make it a prettier. But instead of “thinking green” and making it more of a pollution-free environment, we are creating more roads that stretch farther.

Why not take what we already have abandoned and build over it? Why don’t we spend money to reuse resources? We could easily create rain catchers or more gardens.

Adam Ungashick
Kansas City

Plastic bags not evil, just dumb

Larry Seitter (8/14, Letters) is right with regard to his comment about the “evil” plastic bag being full of plastic-packaged items.

I can’t change corporate America’s method of packaging their goods. I can, however, do my part to “think green” whenever the opportunity presents itself. I carry paper bags and reuse them until they are worn out, then they become birdcage liners.

Do you want more dollars coming out of your wallet to pay for a new or expanded landfill? I don’t. So, be it ever so humble, I will do what I can to help the environment and my wallet.

Did you know you get a nickel, and at some places a dime, for each bag you bring?

Plastic is not “evil.” It’s just not the intelligent choice today.

Bonnie Meeks-Collins
Overland Park

Larry Seitter is being ridiculous when he states that there’s more plastic inside a plastic bag (referring to the contents) than there is in the bag itself. No kidding!

Unfortunately, Larry, we aren’t able to buy margarine, milk, cheese and laundry detergent in bulk by bringing containers to the store to fill with these products. But we are easily able to bring canvas bags when we go shopping, and not just to grocery stores.

Diane E. Capps
Kansas City

Plastic bags aren’t ‘evil’

Those whose mission in life is to convince everyone that modern civilization and America, in particular, are evil, find evidence of this wherever they look and hysterically argue one bald-faced absurdity after another. The scary thing is that they can find so many takers.

We are terrifyingly warned that plastic shopping bags are “evil” (8/9, Letters) which is the same word used to describe murder. The absurdity of focusing on plastic bags completely ignores the fact that those bags are full of items packaged in substantial amounts of plastic: tubs of margarine, milk jugs, bags of shredded cheese, detergent containers, the list goes on. The packaging inside the bag contains maybe 100 times more plastic that the bag itself.

Once again, these definers of evil show themselves to be clueless, frightened children, insisting that the rest of us share their groundless fears and guilt.

Larry Seitter
Olathe

Disposable bags are ‘evil’

I was disgusted to read John Tierney’s “10 things to scratch from your worry list” (8/5, FYI) and see “evil plastic bags” on the list. Tierney implies that we should surrender to plastic, the lesser of two evils. However, both paper and plastic are “evil.” Everyone in our society should be using reusable cloth bags.

To mockingly allege that plastic bag concerns are exaggerated is ignorant. China alone will save 37 million barrels of oil each year by banning free plastic bags. Is that something to scoff at?

Andrea Ways Newman
Kansas City

Meat’s role in global warming

Recently former Vice President Al Gore called for a 10-year plan to move the nation’s entire energy supply to solar, wind, and other renewable sources (7/18, A-5, “Gore urges 2018 goal of carbon-free energy”). But he failed to address the massive role of meat production in the global climate crisis.

A 2006 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization found that animal agriculture accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. That’s more than automobiles. It is also a major cause of land and water degradation.

Carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is emitted by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to operate factory farm and slaughterhouse machinery, trucks and refrigeration equipment. The much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.

Each of us can do our part now to reduce global warming. Our local supermarkets stock a rich variety of soy-based lunch “meats,” hot dogs, veggie burgers, dairy products and ready-to-eat frozen dinners. Did I mention the cornucopia of fruits and vegetables that have always been readily available to us?

More details are at www.tryveg.com.

Everett Donley
Kansas City

Drilling for oil in ANWR

The extreme environmentalists quoted in The Star (7/20, A-1, “Thirst for oil turns sanctuary into battleground”) in opposition to drilling in the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have forgotten the arguments made years ago against the Alaska oil pipeline. The assertions that drilling would damage the caribou herd and interfere with their breeding and reproduction have proved to be false. If George Bush had made the same mistake, it would be called a “lie.”

Now the argument is not that the wildlife will be disturbed by human activity, but that it will become too familiar with us. For that reason, ANWR must remain as is for its “wildness” to be enjoyed by precious few humans.

Meanwhile, poor working stiffs must pay $4 per gallon for gas so that we don’t risk having the shorebirds become too friendly with humans.

Jim O’Connell
Shawnee

With all this talk about gasoline prices and alternative energy sources, there is one thing I know for sure: I cannot put a wind turbine, photovoltaic cell, natural gas or nuclear reactor in my automobile’s gas tank. I need gasoline, and at a reasonable price.

Yes, we must drill our way out of our current situation.

Tom Nelson
Lenexa

There is a long and a short answer to those who think that drilling in ANWR and the eastern Gulf of Mexico will fix our oil problems.

The long answer involves explaining how little oil there is in these areas, how long it will take to develop and how little it will affect the world’s supply and cost. It would take a lot of ink to explain all these shortcomings.

The short answer: T. Boone Pickens.

K.A. Newman
Prairie Village

Idling observations

Last week, I picked up my grandson and his friends after sports camp at Indian Hills Middle School. I arrived a little after dismissal time, and all the spaces in the large circle drive were taken.

I parked by the street and walked to the school to sit on a bench by the door. As I waited about 15 minutes I observed all the cars, mostly SUVs, with the drivers sitting inside with, the motors idling and the air conditioning on.

I was dismayed and shocked to see that to so many it makes no difference how much gas costs or how they are contributing to air pollution.

I guess they either don’t get it or don’t care.

Delia Tankard
Leawood

Solving KC’s sewer problem

It is good to focus on stormwater drainage (7/18, A-1, “KC plots greener sewer system”), but the problem with Kansas City’s sewer system is combined sewers that allow raw sewage in “dedicated” channels to mix with stormwater. These old and deteriorated sewers often result in raw sewage contaminating stormwater discharged to the river during dry periods.

Controlling surface stormwater to reduce flow seems reasonable, but a better option is to eliminate raw sewage from this drain system — costly, but effective. This option would present major benefits to the citizens of Kansas City by eliminating backflow of sanitary sewers, and it would ensure a near-constant flow to sewage treatment plants, which now must divert flow to the river during heavy rains.

Our sewer problem is best defined by raw sewage ending up in streams and rivers. Dedicated separate sanitary sewers are the long-term answer to this problem. They also require smaller mains and lift stations. The homeowners of Kansas City would see a major benefit to this action in a very short period.

George Baggett
Kansas City