Mark Richey | McClelland Miscellanea

Tag Archives: Mark Richey

April 24, 2009 · 6:59 pm

Why Not Celebrate the Creator as Well as the Creation During Earth Week?

“Down to Earth,” by Barbara Taormina in the April 17th Newburyport Current informs readers that there will be a 10-day celebration of the planet.

Let’s face it, isn’t Earth Day (Week?) just a fancy name for spring cleaning?

Most people out there cleaning up the outdoors on their property and in other parts of Newburyport could care less about making some sort of event out of it. They just want to get the work done.

Speaking of events, I was intrigued to see that as part of the Earth Week celebration students from the Edward Molin School took a field trip to Mark Richey’s wind turbine. Would I be dreaming to think that somewhere in the pre or post field trip experience the impressionable youngsters would hear an evenhanded presentation of why the wind turbine is considered marvelous by some and a monstrosity by others?

I also noticed from the agenda of events that the salespeople for global warming would be hawking their wares. Anyone that assures you that global warming is a fact is a liar. Global warming is a theory. Twenty-four inches of snow in Denver on April 17th is a fact and to some, who expect us to take them seriously, a sure sign of global warming.

Maybe the environmentalists, who are pushing so hard to make an event out of something normal, should move on to something else. Why not celebrate the creator of the earth?

Could the Earth Week organizers open up their event schedule for a time of praise and prayer to earth’s creator? We could sing songs of praise to the creator and spend time praying that God would make us wise as we manage the earth he has given us.

Celebrating the creator of the earth can be an uplifting event. I was at Immaculate Conception on Friday night and heard the music of the Boston Community Choir. They were singing gospel music and it was lively – ask anyone who was there.

They were singing about someone greater than the earth. They were singing about someone who, “In the beginning created the heavens and the earth.”

Genesis Chapter One is a great source of information on earth’s creation. It would be a terrific chapter to read as part of the Earth Week celebrations.

( This letter-to-the-editor appeared in the Newburyport Current on April 24, 2009 and the Newburyport Daily News on April 27, 2009. )

Whose Fault is that 292-Foot Wind Turbine??

A 292-foot wind turbine, that only a visually-impaired environmentalist could love, looms large over Route One in Newburyport.

That 292-foot high wind turbine is quite a sight, isn’t it? Try NOT looking at it when you ride along Route One in Newburyport.

The Current hit the target when they referred to it as, “A 292-foot mistake,” on their February 27th editorial page.

But whose mistake was it? The editorial leaves the impression that Mark Richey and his “experts” tricked the city council. We’re to believe that these experts, employed by the wind turbine proponents, minimized the negatives and our city council didn’t catch on. Are our councilors that naiveté? I don’t think so.

In my opinion, Newburyport is a community in which the care of the environment is very important. When someone comes along with an idea that seems to head in that direction the resistance loses ground.

Mark Richey’s wind turbine was just such an idea. The advocates touted its environmental positives and discovered that in this town they were preaching to the choir. The disorganized opponents were dismissed as over-reacting and not able to see the big picture.

Well, now the wind turbine is in place. One look tells you that it is a monstrosity and the happy environmentalist chatter will not change that. Instead of admitting their complicity in the decision to allow the tower, the city council cowardly attempts to slide the blame elsewhere.

I suspect that many of the most ardent, “environment first – people second” advocates, do not have the wind turbine in their sight lines. They assume that those that do will get used to it for the greater good of the community.

When Senator Ted Kennedy was alerted to the fact that speck-sized wind turbines would be built off Hyannis, the champion of alternative and renewable energy lost the fire in his belly and made sure they weren’t built. What is a hypocrite?

I believe that the “environment first – people second” crowd in Newburyport have given us a wonderful example of what their views look like in real life. When they start trying to “walk their talk”, in the future, it is time to remember their 292-foot mistake.

(Prepared as a letter to the editor for the Newburyport Current on February 27th.)