Serving the Towns of Wawarsing, Crawford, Mamakating, Rochester and Shawangunk, and everything in between
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Editorial
The Sadness Of Inevitable Change: It's All Around Us, Folks

It's always hard when big changes hit us unexpectedly. And even when we have wondered whether they'll come.

Take the state's wish to start draining Honk Lake in Wawarsing. We've heard talk about conspiracies, complaints that the scientists have been working "from paper and computers" and not in-the-field observations. Everyone agrees the process has been awkward, with no forewarning.

And yet such sorts of actions have been talked about much over the past decade as various governmental officials have started to take the threat of climate change seriously, figuring out what's at threat and how to diminish dangers from flooding. Dams that have lasted okay for a century can no longer be expected to work as wild rainstorms start to proliferate. The same goes for bridge abutments, culverts, and the even more serious placement of train tracks and key wastewater and other municipal systems next to water bodies. Even Miami is considering how to rethink its future, as has New Orleans, the entirety of the Netherlands, and much of the world's maritime nations.

Or take the split court decision regarding the big development down in Bloomingburg, especially when coupled with this week's news that everyone was readying for another go at dissolving that village come the fall, this time with willing parties on all municipal counts. Together, what comes out is a description of the word "moot." On the one hand, it's now official that the big development was okayed via some sloppy governing practices (whether that was conspiratorial or not is a different matter altogether). On the other, it's now obvious that it took so long for anyone in this community to notice what was happening that there's likely no way to stop things now.

Was it really okay for the village to be doubling its size for golfers and not others?

Change roars when it finally takes hold. Look at the long-pending case involving the charges of anti-Semitism brought against the Pine Bush School District. That one's day in court has now come and gone... and it didn't go well for the local scene, which ended up getting painted as being caught in old ways that may take a long time to get beyond.

Especially when, simultaneously, folks are doing everything they can to keep new businesses from building in places that have been empty for years. What's the reasoning? It's not the change people were wanting.

We reach these difficult crossroads because we have a deep-seated tendency to believe only what we want to believe, and listen to only those truths we want to hear. It's an old trait that we, as Americans, may have held on to longer than many because we've never had the sorts of changes thrust on us that world wars have brought to Europe and Asia, or extreme poverty and political upheaval has wrought elsewhere.

The results are moot, as it were. Because we don't take the threats of imminent change seriously, we don't prepare for them. We worry about our pocketbooks instead of maintaining our commonly-held infrastructure, or stewarding the nature under our control with clarity and real effect. Because some of us refuse to understand that the realities of climate change have less to do with blame than whatever happens next... and being prepared for it.

We set up municipal and community structures, all our social interaction, to better prepare ourselves for such things. That's why we have planning and zoning boards, and master plans and ordinances. It's why we set up commissions over and over again... to try and get things right. To try and gauge what the future might be bringing, and prepare accordingly.

Honk Lake is beautiful. It can be again, we hope. Ditto for the village of Bloomingburg, and shifting town of Mamakating... and the miraculously sustainable Pine Bush School District. And all our schools and towns, in fact.

Yes, we have to think beyond pipe dreams and prospects. We have to work the edges of contingency at all times. Which means that conspiracy, in the long run, is understandable... but it slows us down.

We need optimism, but also realism.

We need to keep moving because otherwise, things will move us anyway.



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