Letter to the Editor, Philadelphia Inquirer

Today, at over eighty years of living in Pennsylvania, eighty years in the greater Pottstown area, forty one years in the same house in Pottstown, I feel what I think and willing to write about should have a chance to be read.

From my reading about the over heating of our planet, I understand the most affected of the population will be the young, especially the very young, and the aged, especially those moving closer to the Century mark. I fall into one group, my great grandchildren into the other. Shortly Congress will be having hearings on the final draft of the Clean Power Plan and Pennsylvania will play a very important roll in the finished draft.

Our state, the forth largest producer of coal, is also a leader in natural gas production. But, sadly, our energy producing plants spew out more impurities than the final draft is intending. Their desire is a one third reduction by year 2030 from base year 2012 of smoke stack impurities somehow thought to help stabilize our climate into the future.

At eighty years, I've come to put worth into accumulated knowledge. The pursuit of science is essentially that, a grand body of seekers who through trial and error arrive at a consensus of settled truth to which the majority agrees. Those opposed have a grand economic stake in preserving the status quo or, more importantly, rolling back the gains already made.

You, the vocal public, have really an important voice in molding the ultimate outcome of these hearings. It is with upmost reverence that I believe in the power of the people to guide legislators to do the right thing. A choir has magnificence to fully voice fill quite large opera halls but it takes a director to assemble each individual into a singularity of purpose. Our's must be an effort to verify the scientific community's findings and pit it against corporate greed. Please speak up, shout out, write to your legislator. Future generations deserve a livable Earth !

Ronald C. Downie

778 N. Evans St.
Pottstown, Pa. 19464

610 326 0614

Solar Panels
Deciduous trees drop their leaves before winter after they stop producing chlorophyll that covers up with green other colorful pigments remaining in the leaf. Just prior to leaves falling colorful displays catch the eye as the color green dissipates while other pigments remain visible. During their six to eight month life, leaves must work like hell to do their job. Leaves are the original solar panels turning sunlight into chlorophyll, tree energy. Trees have a broad range around our planet, from tiny( bonsai) to extremely huge( redwoods, sequoias) and they range as much in age as they range in habitat, some to living many 1000's of years.

Leaf dropping triggers a very dynamic stage in a tree's growth cycle : that is, the development of next year's flowers are wrapped up in a bud prior to the all important development of seeds after the flowers become pollinated. Through seed germination the tree species survives almost endlessly but with a couple million seeds dropped to the ground maybe only one or two will germinate and mature into a full growth tree.

The multitude of trees is so vast that almost every house built is built by using lumber from matured trees. In fact, lumbering tends to be a multigenerational business because once a forest is lumbered it will take over a generation or two for trees to reach an acceptable age for cutting them down. Remember the old tails of an era of sailing when sailors crossed this World looking for tall, straight, strong and somewhat flexible trees to turn them into the main masts of new sailing ships. The tree is so adaptable because it can be formed into doing multiple tasks and is easily worked by hand.

Leaves, the energy producers for trees, have another use when they dry up and fall. One of the most energy rich materials found and now understood by man is when chopped up leaves are piled up and left to compost through heating and bacterial action. The result is often termed "Black Gold" because in nature even without chopping leaves they decompose and provide much of the nutrients needed by maturing trees. Man always seems to need to accelerate a process that nature does in its own due time. If you rake leaves and don't compost them you defy the natural process, a process which has lasted billions( yes, billions ) of years. "Black Gold" can work for you, too.
Ronald C. Downie

Of, By, and For

"They got to be kidding", "say it isn't so", "adding insult to injury" our Federal House of Representatives in Washington, DC. just released their 2016 work calander. Out of 365 days in the year, they scheduled only 110 days to be in session. Regular Joes work 50 weeks a year with 2 weeks off for vacation plus additional days off for holidays , so Joe works 48 or 49 weeks at 5 days a week or about 240+ days a year. Remember, congress has a very liberal policy on extra time off and, the sweet plumbs that come with the position, so many, I can't enumerate them all. Next year's session follows this year's "do nothing congress" so maybe it's better they're away from drinking the Potomac Tea served in DC.

I'm no fan of Rand Paul but he does promote "Term Limits" for legislators. Then , when my neighbor, Barry and Reverent Jake, both talked about term limits, I knew the time was right to champion term limits seeing such diverse members of the society were starting to question no limit's worth. Six, 2 year terms for the house, 12 years in all; two, 6 year terms for the senate, 12 years in all; and two, 4 year terms for president, 8 years in all are the logical terms suggested.

Please remember, the authors of the constitution never meant our country to be governed by professional politicians but by ordinary people who could leave their land for a few years, serve, then return to their communities to their land. It is time to rid Congress of "hold me ons", those who have fed at the trough of plenty for most of their lives. Nor should they be allowed freedom to lobby Congress when the finish serving the people. Return government to : "of the people, by the people, and for the people ".

Ronald C. Downie

Liberal
One of the truths imprinted on me as I've aged, well past retirement, is my insistence on believing in the human values found in a more liberal society. I have tasted the value of social security, the forced system of saving so repayment can be made to us at an age we're non-income producing. Also, Medicare has made my physically in firmed age more tolerable, less stressful, addressing each of my advancing maladies.

What good is a government that has neither a true policy to enhance the full life of a newborn or, at the twilight of life, which insures all a meaningful compassionate ending ? A liberal government that I am drawn to is not one which rattles its sabers for purely posturing purposes but, rather, stands tall in the worthy defense of the country's existence. Dialog, in these advancing centuries, must, in my mind, be the weapon of choice rather than nuclear confrontation, in other words, the end of the World as we have known it could become a reality.

Since its inception, our's is the greatest country ever conceived by humans. The United States of America is a country based on laws stated by a Constitution and administered as written by three bodies : the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. It is beyond my total comprehension, that in a country miles and miles more advanced than every third world country, voters could send to congress people confessed to undo our tested system of governance. Bent on obstruction are these forty or so House members who are subtly cheered on by some closeted Senators.

Yes, our country is strong enough to withstand this assault but, in doing so, we lose many chances to make ourselves better. Also in doing so, we develop a deep public cynicism which undergirds a "can do" attitude based on accomplishments. As a cancer invades a person this, attitude of a cynic, permeates a society, and erodes the publics' health. I will not ever side with this fringe element, they are as a plague in a civilized society.

Ronald C. Downie

"Democrats fall in love ; Republicans fall in line." These political statements tell the truisms of party affiliation.

Democrats need a person to vote for that they can truly love and that they can adore and vote for.

Republicans, rather, need party chiefs who choose a standard bearer that the rank and file voters can accept and vote for.

One party relies on the magnetism of the person that they believe will fill the job contested for and fill it properly.

The other party relies on the mechanics of party operatives to pick a person to lead the party and win the election.

Ronald C. Downie

Texas rains may be headed our way as will the remnants of Hurricane Patricia. Are we ready or are we just unconcerned ?

I'm sorry to be a worrywart but I've written to the borough multiple times about the impending problem with the King Street Bridge. When the dam was still intact below the High Street Bridge it created a damning of water up stream almost to Beech Street. It was upstream there where the beginning of slack water caused pebbles and sand to filter out and islands developed. But under the King St. bridge full currents of creek water flowed.

Today, as an aftermath of removing that dam, islands of silt have clogged one of the two channel openings under the bridge reducing the gross amount of storm water which can freely flow under it. The borough has cut down the growth of voluntary vegetation growing on the island upstream but this island is still a storm impediment, at least it was two weeks ago.

If you remember the past times when the Manatawny overflowed its banks and many homes and businesses were flooded out. If the county and the town get their acts together they could dredge the creek and remove these island obstructions. 

Ronald C. Downie

Blood Red

At sun up, blood red sputtered out
Coloring Limerick's belched plume.

Recalling elementary
Days at Lower Pottsgrove Grade School.

Where teachers taught impressionable
Neophytes about cloud colors.

Intense cloud color comes from dirt
In the sky, dust, impurities.

Seems sun rays reflect off floating
Particles in plumes or high air.

But, to me watching morning wake,
Red sky Is like a darn red light.

Stop! Wake up, be alert! Stop!
Why should Limerick's plume run blood red ?

What color will radiation's
plume bloom into ? Should we worry ?

"Almost free electric promised",
Payment, I guess, for future ills.

Haven't gotten iodine pills
Yet. My diet is all pills now.

Who's kidding who? Is blood red an
Oman ? Is a color deadly ?

Just some thoughts on sun up's pleasure.
Thinking's muted when we sleep too late.

Ronald C. Downie