Opinion

A beleaguered Norway maple in the Star office driveway was brought down this week. How it had survived where it was, surrounded by bluestone pavement, was a testament to these trees’ toughness. In recent years it had begun to shed large branches, which hung up ominously above parked cars. But it also shaded the south side of the building in the summer, providing a screen of green leaves between my office window and the rest of the world.

It’s a welcome change that TV has of late become a unifier of families — at least for Marvel fans.

After four years of federal inaction, climate activists are pushing for action on the single-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, transportation accounts for over a quarter of the total and it is growing. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, for the last 30 years, emissions from transportation increased more than any other category. In East Hampton Town, transportation is clearly on the minds of a committee that drafted the town board’s recent climate emergency declaration.

Long Island is in a precarious situation in terms of meeting growing energy demands. So how will the construction of offshore wind farms affect the grid?

­ ‘Water, in some respects, is like the Gospel, free, but he who diverts it from its accustomed channels will, in the end, find it expensive.”

These words of excellent wisdom were penned in 1920 by a graybeard named Samuel H. Miller, who grew up in what is now the Baker House, and printed as a letter to the editor in the March 2 edition of this newspaper.

Economically, now is the time to prime the pump, as F.D.R. said. “Do something,” as he also said.

In some ways, it is disappointing that an effort among some Wainscott property owners to carve a new incorporated village out of about five square miles of oceanfront, fields, woodland, and lots of expensive real estate may not reach a vote.

What childhood traits and experiences promote an adulthood commitment to the natural world? A sense of wonder.

In my youth, the presence of rats — the four-legged kind — in the best zip codes was a source of high humor.

The East Hampton Town supervisor shared a truth this week when he explained that keeping sand on the denuded downtown Montauk ocean beach was not something that the town and Suffolk County could afford to do for the long term.

“So, what is your weakness?” my foot doctor asked. Aside from not being able to move, I couldn’t think of any.

Frost took the twitter from the dawn songbirds yesterday, which made me pay attention to something that had been at the back of my mind: When does spring start?