Buffalo Rising Online

There are two significant crisis situtations that face our environment.

First is global warming and second is the destruction ot the worlds water through plastics in our oceans and pollution to fresh water in Great Lakes.

The polar ice is melting and there is a giant area in the Pacific ocean filled with huge and tiny pieces of plastics from the surface to ne hundred feet below. Here in the Great Lakes invasive species and human waste is fouling our water that we drink.

Tonight here in the West SIde in a HIGH crime area my wife and I turned off the lights and had a terrific candle light dinner. The bonus was to think that we were in solidarity with other people across the globe.

heathersmiles patronize Sweet Tooth they shut down their lights tonight. I must tell you that I have another perspective on turning off all lights and crime. My brother was murdered in part because of poor lighting at a business. In this case had there been better lighting my brother might have seen the gunmen waiting in ambush to rob and kill him. I do not think that the Buffalo Police meeting at intersections in Buffalo at 9 PM are letting down their guard. I figure this is a passing of the guard and sharing of information off the radio that helps fight crime. The big probems are not at Valu or Home Depot but in higher crime places which they are positioned to respond to quickly. I live in a high crime area. I know what I'm talking about. Crime occurs 24 hours a day but the criminals that committ the violent crimes work primarily in the night. They sleep in the day.

So how do we promote Earth Hour without harming people? I think we should do what my wife and I did tonight. We should gather in groups and use our rights to protect ourselves in our homes and keep a well charged cell phone always nearby and alert. In commercial business areas more security should be assigned or maybe these business's holding public gatherings in their lots by candlelight to benefit the globe.

We need investment in solar and wind energy generation so that we may run lights off of other sources of energy other than that created from coal and nuclear sources. The need for World Hour would no longer be required once we harness the southwest winds blowing off Lake Erie and and when we generate power in our homes, yards, and cars from the closest star. We would not need Earth Hour if the Federal government had a Manhattan Project to make all American homes and buildings energy efficient. The need for a lightless hour once a year would not be required if we were less watesful and more like our ancestors who were in balence with nature. At present we are not treating nature as part of our being. Instead we think we can correct nature and expliot it and throw it upon the ground like it was disregardable to be consumed and forgotten.

Crimes that harm nature happen in big and small ways in our world and our city. Two weeks ago at the NW corner of Vermont and Niagara streets an old growth tree had the bark at the base tioabout two feet up the trunk chopped or cut off methodically.However every day diesel turcks emit nitrous oxyide fumes which are not removed under the 2007 U,S, Federal standards for diesel truck engines. In sunlight nitrous oxyide fumes become smog. Smog in fact causes shorter life spans and diseases such as heart and respiratory disease. On the West SIde a study funded by federal dollars shows that residents living in the 14213 Zip code area have elevated levels of respiratory disease. The Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority is telling us there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when they tell us that more diesel trucks flooding the air with nitorus oxyide fumes will be equal to one lawn mower runing on Sunday. The weapons of mass destruction in Buffalo are to the health of West Siders from diesel fumes The more trucks that come to the West Side by building a bridge into Buffalo the greater the increase to exposures will be to people in our city to a higher volume of truck traffic and truck ozone pollution. This situation requires a Buffalo Hour.

Good on ya to everyone that took part in World Hour last night. A blessing to everyone in WNY that takes part in the Buffalo Hour that turns off a bridge for trucking needs over a neighborhood for people. In the words of Jane Jacobs, "Who are we building this city for people or cars/trucks?"

One more Buffalo Hour coment. D'Youville College iis absolutley wrongful in proposing closing Fargo Ave between Porter and Connecticut streets and creating a cul du sac based on a weapons of mass destruction premise called speeding cars. The people in First Inclusiveness and Reciprocal Street Travel for the people in the Santa Maria Towers, on Fargo Avenue, and the West SIde demand that Fargo Avenue emergency or any other street traffic not be rerouted or diverted. This is a matter of life and death to those of us who reside in the neighborhood south and north of D'Youville College. It is also wrongful and anti Christian to pit home owner against home owner to remove retired seniors from their neighborhood to build suburban parking lots on the West Side. It is wrongful to surround an Iraq War, comba,t veteran's home on three sides with D'Youville parking lots where there were homes.. It is wrongful to build parking lots around more than one side of a person home in Buffalo when they have rights as community and tax payers above and above that of parking lots for commuters. This is part of the Buffalo Hour. We need help now from those in Buffalo who will stand up for people when they are being wrongfully harmed.