CLEAR unequivocally stands with the Black Lives Matter movement and related efforts to address inequality in how we treat, include, reach out to, think about, understand, support, and listen to members of the Black community.
Ruminations
Ponderings, rants and raves.
CLEAR Bunch #SocialDistancing
Today we held our regular Tuesday CLEAR staff meeting. For the first time in a while the meeting wasn’t cancelled due to looming deadlines, stress, panic, conflicting meetings or anything else. Even in these social distancing times, everyone “made” it despite being all over the state, juggling households with small children, “distance learning” efforts, dogs […]
Projections Matter, Especially on Election Night
The first thing I teach someone about maps is that they are more than just lines and direction on a page, screen, or device. Maps convey information. Maps tell a story. But maps can also be deceiving. Consider for a minute, election maps. If you’re reading this blog post then you survived, if just barely, […]
What do you do after you scoop?
On my drive home last week I saw two of my neighbors walking their dogs. One of the dogs had just done his business and the owner dutifully scooped it up with a doggy doodie bag dangling from the dog’s leash. Excellent, I thought, he knows that dog poop left on the street can be […]
Can You Hear Me Now? Smartphone Maps (that work!) Off the Beaten Path
It’s summer. Family vacation time. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for this all year. We had planned to take the family west for two weeks in the mountains. Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Off the beaten path. Round up the kids, pack up the camping […]
Butts on the Beach
Butts on the Beach This past weekend, while stuck in traffic for 20 minutes, I noticed four different people throw 6 cigarette butts out the widow and onto the highway. That, and the fact that I am lazy, moved me to re-post something I wrote several years ago. Recently a columnist in a local Southeastern […]
The Journey from Airsick Bag to Dizzying Activity
April 15 marked the 15th anniversary of the founding of CLEAR. On that date in 2002, the UConn Board of Trustees approved CLEAR as an official university center. (It may surprise some of you to know that, at UConn at least, you can’t just hang up a shingle and call yourself an institute or center, […]
Sunrise, sunset and the Equation of Time
The days are finally getting longer. It is always a slow, subtle and most welcome change from the days of leaving for work in the dark and arriving home again in the dark. Since the winter solstice on December 21, 2016 when the North Pole is tilted furthest from the sun the amount of daylight […]
Deny the Deniers
Last fall I thought about using this title to write about denying federal aid for climate change related disasters to states with administrations that deny climate change. To those governors and legislatures who take no or little action to prepare for sea level rise, increased precipitation events, more intense storms, droughts, etc. that science tells […]
Drought in Connecticut? Who knew?
Connecticut is not the first place that would likely come to mind if I asked you to come up with a part of the country that experiences drought; the desert southwest and California might typically be first on the list. However, southern New England has received less than normal amounts of precipitation for the past […]
New Stormwater Regulations Spur a Look Back
Our family gatherings often involve interesting discussions (aka arguments) on politics, religion or other fun topics. Occasionally the conversations stray into the environmental arena. Although many in my family argue against “big government” getting in the way of everything, they have had to agree that some federal regulations like the Clean Water act and the […]
A Brief Departure from the Hallowed Halls
With the summer pretty much behind us (sorry, but it’s true), the Center puts its nose back to the grindstone and, among many other things, turns its attention back to the blog. Except for me. My nose will not touch whirling pumice this semester, because I’m going on sabbatical leave. For those of you not […]
Where Are We? Winter Fun With Maps
I don’t know about you, but I am starting to feel the first tendrils of the winter blues creeping in. While we haven’t had much snow (yet), the cold has certainly kept me inside more than I’d like. With football season ending and March Madness still a ways off, I’m on the lookout new distractions. […]
Summer’s Last Gasp…
Walks through the woods have certainly changed since early summer. Leaves are changing color and even falling. Squirrels are busily making nests and gathering nuts. But before you turn to picking apples and making pumpkin pie, there are a few summer pleasures still to enjoy. The sites and smells are so different now than they […]
Time to Reassess Connecticut’s Landscape
“Now is the time for Connecticut to move swiftly to save our dwindling open spaces and our great heritage of natural resources for the use and enjoyment of future generations.” Thus began a letter from the Governor of Connecticut ordering the preparation of a plan of action for statewide conservation. The Governor was John Dempsey, […]
It is sunny!
And there are 24 solar panels on my house soaking it all up! Yesterday the panels collected 37 kWh and the day before was 37.9 kWh. To give you some perspective, the average household in Connecticut uses 731 kWh a month or about 24.4 kWh a day. Of course this varies by season and so does […]
Climate Change—Public vs. Private Goods
– Article by Linda Powers Tomasso, Project Associate, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard University School of Public Health Climate change is in the news almost daily, and while many of us didn’t grow up with the phrase, our attentiveness to the causes of a warming planet gives us no cause for comfort. Our own […]
This winter will end…right?
“Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of […]
LID vs Green Infrastructure
If you deal with stormwater issues or land use planning, chances are you have heard the phrase “green infrastructure” mentioned a lot recently. It is rapidly replacing “Low Impact Development” (LID) as the phrase du jour in the stormwater biz. But before we all go willingly adopting this into our lexicon, we must first ask […]
Keep Your Butts Off Our Beaches
Recently a columnist in a local Southeastern Connecticut newspaper wrote about the things that bug him when driving. It included the usual gripes that we all have—people driving slowly in the passing lane, failure to use turn signals, merging on the highway with little consideration of the traffic already on the highway, able-bodied people parking […]