One of the most exciting things to happen in Hanover lately has been the news that 250 acres along Greensboro Road are to be permanently protected as the Mink Brook Community Forest. Protecting these lands will help our community resist many of the major effects of climate change: flooding and erosion, wildlife habitat loss, and unnatural heating of air and water.
Keeping the hillsides forested instead of paved and roofed helps keep air temperatures cool, a benefit for neighbors, too.
Keeping a healthy vegetative buffer over Mink Brook shades the water and keeps it cool as the climate warms, benefiting trout habitat here and downstream. Cooler water holds more oxygen.
Protecting forested connections with the Appalachian Trail corridor to the north and Rix Ledges to the south will ensure that wildlife can move freely between the Connecticut River lowlands and the cooler uplands of Moose Mountain and beyond. Wildlife populations that don’t become isolated will remain healthy and genetically fit.
The wetlands act as sponges during the heavy storms that come with climate change. Protecting them will guard against flooding and erosion in Mink Brook and its feeder streams. And clustering a small group of modest, net-zero homes close to the road, at a spot already served by town water and sewer, will avoid dispersed development into cool forested habitat.
The town of Hanover, the Trust for Public Land, and the Hanover Conservancy are delighted to be working together to bring this great project over the finish line, and gratified at the strong support from our community. Help is still needed. Get in touch if you’d like to know more by emailing Betsy.mcgean@tpl.org, vicki.smith@hanovernh.org or amulligan@hanoverconservancy.org.
JULIA GRIFFIN and ADAIR MULLIGAN
Hanover
The writers serve as Hanover town manager and executive director of the Hanover Conservancy, respectively.
Today, criticism in the media of President Donald Trump focuses primarily on his unconscionable and incompetent handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his contempt for those in our military who have fought and died for our country, his sowing of discord and fomenting of violence, his attempts to prevent political opponents from voting and his racism.
But the greatest sin of his presidency is arguably his relentless, multifaceted assault on the environment, of which his abandonment of the Paris Agreement is emblematic.
Right now, our nation is in the throes of disasters ranging from horrific wildfires in the West to highly destructive storms over much of the rest of the country, not to mention historic heat waves, worsening droughts, rising oceans, mass extinctions, etc. It is no longer plausible to deny that climate change is a causative or exacerbating factor in many, if not most, of these events, nor to deny that humans bear a heavy burden of responsibility for climate change.
The pandemic will eventually pass, the economy will presumably recover, and we may even make significant progress in the near future toward overcoming our centuries-old racism, but the consequences of climate change will negatively impact the lives of our children’s children — maybe, to put it biblically, “even unto the seventh generation.”
There are many things we can do to battle this scourge, but perhaps the most important one right now is to vote.
DAVID M. LEMAL
Norwich
President Donald Trump knew how lethal COVID-19 was and is on tape saying so as far back as February, yet that has not been his public messaging. He claims he was not lying to us. Instead, he claims to be keeping Americans calm by reassuring us that we had little to fear. Are Americans a people afraid of bad news and challenges?
Is this leadership? Did Roosevelt tell us the attack on Pearl Harbor was “no big thing”? Did not Churchill lay it out to the British public by promising nothing less than blood, sweat and tears in the war with Germany? Did Kennedy not state the risk of nuclear war over the placement of Russian missiles in Cuba? Leaders treat their public with respect for their intelligence and by describing their role in the solution to the crisis.
Was the president deceiving, or was he reassuring? After acknowledging on tape that this was a deadly disease, did he say what Americans could do to respond, like promoting use of masks, promoting social distancing, urging Americans to heed the advice of our public health and medical experts, or speaking about what proven medical responses were available? No. Instead, he has told tall tales about nonsensical “solutions” like hydroxychloroquine, injecting disinfectants, “herd immunity” through illness and death, and promoting a marginal serum treatment like it was a major medical breakthrough. He has completely sidelined and damaged the credibility of our public health and medical experts and institutions. What messages have been sent by holding mass rallies in the midst of this pandemic?
What we have learned from this completely chaotic failure of a response to this pandemic is the U.S. has had 6.5 million cases and more than 194,000 deaths. This nation, with its unmatched wealth and expertise, is among the worst in the world in outcomes. Now we are beginning to hear that we will have a vaccine by the election, regardless of how incomplete the clinical trial data might be.
As with anything else this president says, remember the advice caveat emptor.
PAUL ETKIND
Grantham