Stefanik should take a moment to consider climate change

Change is here as Post-Star announces three-day a week print edition

By Ken Tingley

Rep. Elise Stefanik has repeatedly endorsed the need for more baby formula, the importance of chocolate milk for children and protecting gas stoves in breathlessly panicked tweets that often attack what she sees as the real enemy - Democrats.

If you believe differently than her, you are the enemy instead of the respected opposition.

Yet, as an orange haze settled over upstate New York last week, we heard nothing from out local congresswoman about the existential threat of climate change to the air we breathe.

I was reminded of one of our first editorial board meetings with the young candidate when I asked her about her position on climate change and she proclaimed she was not a scientist. Those were the talking points Republican candidates were issued at the time.

My colleague, an exasperated Will Doolittle, said to her “You went to Harvard, and you don’t know about climate change.”

Since then, dozens of reports have been issued from the scientific community about the  increasingly catastrophic affects of climate change, yet our congresswoman shows little concern.

Climate change can sometimes be a hard sell in the Northeast because we get rain, lots of rain compared to parts of the West. The past few days have been a good example. Our lawns are lush and green each spring, and if we hit a dry spell, we have the Hudson River, wells and brimming reservoirs from which to tap.

The danger we see is on television as we watch California and points out west burn. We now see the same thing in Canada with more than 400 forest fires raging. The difference this time is the billowing smoke from those fires is drifting south into our backyards and across most of the eastern seaboard. It was so bad last Wednesday that New York City had the worst air quality in the world. Yes, the world.

In response, Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate were preparing the “Save Our Gas Stoves Act” and the “Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act” to stave off the seizure of appliances.

On June 6, Rep. Stefanik tweeted:

More than 4.1 million jobs are connected to the natural gas industry. Biden and Far Left Democrats want to ban gas cooking appliances in the name of “climate activism” and put millions of Americans out of work.

It would have been more appropriate to tweet:

Three-hundred thirty million Americans will increasingly be impacted by climate change. We need to transition to clean energy.

On June 2 she tweeted:

Joe Biden is going after your gas stoves. He is out-of-touch with hardworking Americans.

She also tweeted that Gov. Kathy Hochul is trying to ban gas stoves.

Once again Stefanik and many of her colleagues are trying to fix a problem that does not exist. The Department of Energy has been finalizing energy efficiency standards for cooking appliances as is required by law. The new standards ensure new stoves meet energy efficiency standards by using less energy to do the same tasks. Half of the gas stoves already meet this standard. Simple design changes would fix the others.

Scientific research has also found that gas stoves produce a pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, that can significantly increase the risk for childhood asthma. Gas stoves also produce as many as 21 dangerous chemicals, many of which have been linked to cancer.

Ultimately, being more energy efficient with our appliances is another step in battling climate change, while also being more healthy. But when you read some of the research, you start to wonder why gas stoves aren’t being banned.

So during the same week when Rep. Stefanik went on her crusade to save gas stoves while ignoring the orange cloud that forced many of us back into face coverings, there was this report released by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

The Associated Press reported that heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has reached record highs while increasing at one of the fastest rates on record.

“Carbon dioxide levels in the air are now the highest they’ve been in more than 4 million years because of the burning of oil coal and gas. The last time the air had similar amounts was during a less hospitable hothouse Earth before human civilization took root,” The AP reported.

That is not good news for civilization.

There were no tweets from Rep. Stefanik about the record carbon dioxide levels that threaten civilization.

There were no tweets about the orange cloud over head. I thought for sure she would find a way to link the smoke to what she calls “the Biden crime family.”

Combine the forest fires in Canada with the increasing carbon dioxide levels, it is an issue that really should not be ignored.

These past few days may be a preview of what our future summers will be like as forest fires become more prevalent in Canada. I hope not, but I fear it is possible.

Canada has the world largest forest system, but the record heat and continued drought has made its forests vulnerable. There will be more fires and the fire season will continue to get longer. I fear our air will be oranger.

No one should throw away their pandemic masks yet.

But perhaps, they should consider an electric stove.

Last American Newspaper

My old newspaper, The Post-Star in Glens Falls, NY, announced Sunday that beginning in July the newspaper would be printed just three days a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday).

This is not radical new business model. The Syracuse newspaper has been printed three days a week for the past 10 years. It rebranded itself as syracuse.com and continues to do outstanding journalism both in print and online.

The Post-Star also announced it would be delivered by the Post Office.

For those of us used to that walk to the mailbox to read our newspaper over breakfast, that tradition will be disrupted. Not many of us receive our mail at 6 a.m.

But I caution about canceling your subscription. We need newspapers and the journalism they do even in a reduced format. The Post-Star promises that each print edition will be “bursting with local news.”

That is great to hear and I hope they deliver on that promise.

When I retired in 2020, I wrote the book “The Last American Newspaper.” The goal was to remind readers of the good that newspapers do and how important they are to the community. As I’ve traveled around the region, I continually heard how much people love the print version of their newspaper and how they’ve noticed fewer stories.

But they still love their newspaper, especially the print version.

I get it. I feel the same way. But I read the Times Union and New York Times on my iPad daily and I have adapted. You can, too.

Digital newspapers are the future.

Sometimes we have to be pushed into the future.

Support your local newspaper.

Book still available

To read about the great work that The Post-Star did over the past 25 years and hear the stories of the men and women who produced those stories, pick up a copy of “The Last American Newspaper.”

It is still available locally at: Ace Hardware, Warren County Historical Society, Queensbury; Chapman Museum, Glens Falls; McKernon Gallery, Hudson Falls; Battenkill Books, Cambridge; and the Corner Stone Bookshop, Plattsburgh.