By Dr. Robert Thorson I’m dreading the 112th Congress, which begins next January. New members of the House and Senate are dominated by those who are either publicly skeptical of human-caused climate change, or who have derided those who believe that “the reduction and control of atmospheric CO(-2) [is] a serious and pressing issue, worthy […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Hartford and Flint, Mich. — a tale of two cities. The Hartford water supply (overseen by the Metropolitan District Commission) is so good that the Niagara Bottling company is proposing a plant in Bloomfield that would use up to 450,000 gallons per day. Meanwhile, the Flint water supply is so bad […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson The tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico is a classic case of human error. We are all to blame. We will all live with the consequences, albeit unevenly. The media sees this mostly as a human story: the ducking-and-covering by politicians with respect to offshore drilling; the blame-shifting from stockholders to […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Bird-watchers are an interesting bunch. They do it in the rain, the snow and the dark. They do it on hot prairies, foggy islands and alligator-infested marshlands. I’ve never understood them until this year, during which highly credentialed bird scientists have been debating — like lawyers in a courtroom — alleged […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson My New Year’s resolution was not to write a single column about global climate change. I hereby break that resolution. “God is Great. Beer is good. And People are Crazy.” That’s the chorus of a country-music tune that played on the radio as I drove toward Narragansett Bay, R.I., for a […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Rachel Carson (1907-1964), and Sam Dodd (1921-) shared a love of nature. Sam who? Unless I misunderstood what he told me last week during lunch, Sam grew up in in rural New Jersey, moving to Mansfield in the early 1960s. There, he had a medical career, raised […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson ‘Property Values Drop, So Do Town Grand Lists.” This was the subhead on a story this month by Kathleen McWilliams in The Courant. Normally such stories are about rising crime, neighborhood blight or corporate closings. But in this case it’s about disintegrating home basements in northeastern Connecticut that can cost up […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Ahhh! Summer vacation. Time to relax and go fishing. Not quite. Fishing has become so high-tech and scientific that I sometimes wonder why it’s still so much fun. Answer? Because there’s so much learning going on. Fishing technology is fascinatingly complex. There’s high- resolution underwater acoustic imaging. Global positioning systems. Bathymetric […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow. Snow. That’s how many times Connecticut received at least 6 inches of the cursed white stuff in January. As I write this, I’m watching new snow accumulate, with no end in sight. The grand sum on my deck rises toward its source. Beyond aesthetic beauty, […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Look! Up in sky! It’s a bird? It’s a stationary hang-glider? No, it’s a private suburban home perched on a mountainside. Ridgeline development has struck again! This has always been a bad idea; in the 1960s planner and social scientist William Holly Whyte urged Connecticut to protect its traprock ridges. Some […]