Dunleavy misses basic concepts on energy
High school students are required to take science courses for a reason. So they know what is physically possible and know hot air when they hear it. So when ex-superintendent Dunleavy blows up a dust devil “championing clean green” energy he’s missing two basic concepts:
1) You cannot reduce greenhouse gases by making more. Carbon fuels (natural gas, fuels, coal, wood) all produce CO2 when burned.
2) You cannot produce more energy than you start with. Every time it changes form (to heat, electricity, motion, chemistry, or light) it loses energy. Building a pipeline to burn natural gas as a fuel, to convert it to hydrogen and store it as ammonia that will later be turned into hydrogen in fuel cells to produce electricity is like driving to Delta to fly to Barrow to snowmachine to Prudhoe Bay and drive the haul road to get to Fairbanks. Why not just drive to Fairbanks? Likewise, the idea of burning more fossil fuels to produce hydrogen and storing the waste product (carbon dioxide) underground is fuelish. The renewables — wind, hydro or solar power can produce H2 (and O2). It stores easily and when burned turns back into water. H20 isn’t toxic. If you’ve ever been in a jet on takeoff you can feel a force that can’t be produced by a battery.
So we need hydrogen fuel. It stores as easily as propane. We don’t need more carbon in the process or a governor who doesn’t understand.
More on Mikey’s misunderstandings later.
Gordy Vernon
What do we mandate if we segregate LGBQT books?
Are we to ban books that don’t align with our belief systems? Alas, there is something to offend everyone in a public library. I am offended in particular by Nancy Drew mysteries. You scoff! Nancy Drew is a heedless character whose elitism and callous disregard for her friends, Bess and others, models a “mean girls” attitude. Who wants to be Nancy’s friend? Not me as an avid third grade reader and now a grown-up who has reread a couple of them. Yet the books remain in the library with many to defend them.
Are preschoolers influenced by the swish, swish, swish of colorful characters? Without any negative coaching such innocents accept and enjoy the diversity just as they accept racial differences, Halloween personas, animals that talk, and the color blue when everyone else lauds red and yellow. These books no more encourage our children toward an LGBQT identity than Pippi Longstocking, eccentric, shabby, wild child, shaped us to abandon our families.
What do we mandate if we segregate LGBQT books into a separate area? Limited access incurs distinctions that promote discrimination and a “Jim Crow” status. If we shunt these books to a special section, what next — books on evolution, sex, racial discrimination, Joseph Campbell — each to their own sector? It has been the policy of the HPL since at least the 1980s to resist balkanization of all materials.
What about children requesting books they know their parents won’t approve? How to enforce age restrictions? A separate section surely assigns an allure that encourages the materials to all questioning and engaged 8+-year-olds. When I worked at the Homer Public Library, we would find adult books on sex re-shelved helter-skelter by after-school drop-ins from the intermediate and middle schools who wanted to remain inconspicuous. Those kids were actively on the hunt for pertinent information.
Parents always have the right and responsibility to manage their own children’s access to materials they don’t approve of, whether online, on TV or at the library. They don’t, however, have the right to deny representation in our library or our society of books and information that reflect our differences and beliefs.
Ann Oberlitner
Thank You Homer Foundation,
The Kachemak Ski Club, aka Homer Rope Tow, would like to extend a big thank you to the Homer Foundation. With the help of the YAC (youth advisory committee) grant we received we will be able to expand our program for outfitting local youth for downhill skiing and snowboarding as well as improve the overall experience for those using the Rope Tow. We strive to keep our local ski area accessible and affordable. These grants make it possible. Thank You Homer Foundation!
Sincerely,
Sarah Banks
Secretary, KSC, Homer Rope Tow
Fun for everyone!
The Wolf Ridge ski trail has been in a month and 2023 marks the 12th year Cook Inlet Regional Inc. (CIRI) has granted the Kachemak Nordic Ski Club (KNSC) a permit to groom the trail on its land adjacent to the McNeil Canyon Ski Trail System at mile 12 East End Road. Thanks are owed to CIRI for permitting the trail on their land, the members of KNSC for the financial support to make the trail possible and the volunteers who clear and groom the trails and keep that equipment running. We appreciate the cooperation of other users such as snowmachiners for crossing perpendicular to the trail and not driving on the trails endangering skiers. Thanks to dog owners for keeping your dog under control and picking up after it. Thanks to walkers and snowshoers for keeping to the side of the trail away from the set tracks. All of us being considerate of one another makes fun for everyone. Become a member of KNSC to support the great ski and snowshoe trails around Homer.
Nicky Szarzi
KNSC volunteer
