By Gabrielle Selz

We are a community shaped and surrounded by water, bounded on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and on the other by the Peconic Bay and the Long Island Sound; we inhabit one of the most beautiful and highly developed regions of coastal land. However, despite increased awareness of the issues of global climate change, most of us on the East End are still unaware of the vulnerability facing our immediate area. 

Not only are sea levels rising, the rate is accelerating. Projections of sea level increases vary from, on the conservative side between 2 to 5 inches by the year 2020 to a more realistic estimation of 12 inches if rapid ice sheet melting is taken into account. Even with variance in forecasting, authorities agree that any amount of sea level rise is alarming. Additionally, because of the rising temperature of the upper level of the ocean, hurricanes are predicted to be more powerful and to last longer: Homes could be damaged, access roads flood and salt water intrude into the ground water aquifer system. 

Though there may be a discrepancy in the degree, the change in sea levels will reconfigure the nature of our landscape within the next decade no matter what we do. The question then becomes, how do we plan for a problem that encompasses uncertain projections, sudden and devastating storms as well as incremental changes happening over long periods of time?

It’s easy to visualize the impact of a major storm. We’ve seen the images of the devastation wrought by Ike and Katrina and some of us even remember The Great Hurricane of 1938, which created the Shinnecock Inlet. Though such storms are historically rare, they are occurring with greater frequency and severity. However, it’s the gradual impact over decades from the incremental rise in sea level, that are harder for us to encompass and prepare for, and yet these are the changes that will affect our lives and communities.

The news isn’t all grim. The slow and insidious nature of the problem of rising sea levels gives us a window of opportunity to plan, both for gradual change and for the catastrophic event of a major storm.

At this point, local decision makers in our communities have been unable to effectively integrate sea level rise and coastal hazard risk into any kind of policy that would protect our human communities, our natural resources and shape land use management. Even the recent new flood maps implemented by FEMA were confusing to individual homeowners as well as town officials and land use authorities. 

The fragility and beauty of our environment, combined with the highly developed nature of the area, offer unique challenges to the East End. We are now faced with the task of advocating for an approach to adaptation. This will take tremendous support for public policies that address sustainability.

In order to implement the changes that are necessary for a resilient community, we must come together as a society. We need to change land use policy and manage our resources, to acquire open space on the coast, to restore habitats as natural buffers, to move public structures, such as the Montauk Lighthouse which is an historic treasure and still dangerously situated, to change our wetland laws and, in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, to develop a post storm redevelopment plan that does not offer perverse incentives that keep people in harm’s way. All this takes time. 

A forum to address these issues is being held over the weekend of March 27^th on the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University. The 1^st Women’s Conference on Sustainability, co-hosted by WISE (Women’s Initiatives for a Sustainable Earth) along with Stony Brook Southampton and the Stony Brook University Center for Wine, Food and Culture is designed to empower, inspire and educate. The conference is open to women, men, professionals and novices and includes information, discussion and entertainment all focused on the issues of climate change and creating resilient communities. One of the speakers, Sarah Newkirk from The Nature Conservancy, will demonstrate an interactive map server that works much like Google Earth in helping East Enders to visualize, pinpoint and generate predictions of sea-level rise and hazards to individual homes.

Other speakers include Richard Leakey (the anthropologist who lives in Kenya on a self-sufficient farm), Patti Wood (Grassroots Environmental Education), Sara Gordon (trained by Al Gore for the Climate Project), and many more.

Designed to flow from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, with one price of $165 for the entire weekend, attendees are still free to pick and choose from the events that interest them most.

Personally, the flood of problems we face sometimes overcomes me. Yet the truth is that there are simple steps we can take. Passivity is often the result of not knowing how to participate. The conference offers us the opportunity to come together, educate ourselves, learn grassroots leadership practices, understand how change happens, and move toward action and advocacy. 

For more details and to register for the conference, go to www.sowise.org.

 

Gabrielle Selz is a freelance writer living in Southampton. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, More Magazine and Art Papers. She’s writing on behalf of WISE and The 1st Women’s Conference on Sustainability.

Popularity: 11% [?]

By Marianna Levine

With movies ranging in subject from butterflies and turtles to building in an eco-friendly way, Stony Brook Southampton’s First Annual Green Film Series was started as a way to further celebrate and communicate the campus’s focus on sustainability. It features a free film about environmental sustainability each Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. and was  the brainchild of interim Dean Martin Schoonen, and the Avram Theater’s manager Leonard Ziemkiewicz. 

For the past two years Stony Brook Southampton has billed itself as a “green campus” and even offers a major in sustainability. In fact, according to Mr. Ziemkiewicz, it is one of the first colleges in the country to offer such an academic focus. 

The film series’ primary goal, according to the school’s media relations manager Darren Johnson, is to get the community, along with students and faculty, involved in serious and lively discussions about the varying aspects of sustainability and how it impacts everyday lives. 

The word “sustainability” has become a popular catchall phrase recently, but in this case it refers primarily to the idea that the Earth’s resources should be replenished at the same rate as they are used. However with today’s economic and environmental complexity one cannot just study ecology without bringing in economic and social issues.  Therefore the film series covers a number of topics including this week’s documentary, “Buyer be Fair,” a film that examines fair trade certification throughout the world.  Another film shown on  March 19th, “Black Diamond” explores all aspects of the diamond trade from the miners to the jewelry dealers.

After each viewing, the college hosts a discussion about the featured topic with one or two of Stony Brook Southampton’s teachers. Faculty members Heather Macadam, a writer, and Dr. Arlene Cassidy, the director of sustainable studies, will host this week’s discussion. 

“Sometimes the discussions last longer than the movie,” Mr. Johnson relates.  He notes that most of the films are just about an hour in length. Mr. Ziemkiewicz has been told that the students who attend the screenings bring the discussions into the classroom soon thereafter. 

However he notes, the crowds haven’t been entirely made up of students and faculty.

“We get a good mix of students, professors, and the general public attending each screening,” said Mr. Johnson. Which is exactly what the series’ founders were hoping would happen. Mr. Ziemkiewicz is hopeful the series will become an annual event, and stresses that he “really wants to get the local community involved in the discussion.”

Other upcoming films include, “The Monarch, A Butterfly Beyond Borders” and “Water First and Turtle World.” 

The film series will end with a film entitled, “Build Green,” which features Canadian environmental activist, David Suzuki, showcasing various environmental buildings and architects from around the world. This film should be of interest to the local community as Southampton Town has been trying to revamp its own building codes more recently to effectively comply with current green building standards.

Above: A scene from “Buyer Be Fair.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

This week, we would like to applaud Stony Brook Southampton for taking the initiative to educate their students and the public with an eye on creating more jobs related to green energy practices in the future. We find this way of thinking refreshing in these troubled times and see it as a “green lining,” as it were, in an otherwise bleak cloud.

The forum on Friday at the university was a strong reminder that great business opportunities can and, in fact, are almost always, found during difficult times such as these. It is when the chips are down and all that is familiar turns to dust when Americans tend to get truly creative by reinventing themselves, their businesses and the country. Now, looking at the economy all we can do is keep our heads up and take this breath of fresh air as a reminder that there just might be green light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

That “green” light is a movement towards focusing on low energy consumption, reduced carbon output and general greener practices in many aspects of our daily lives — from green building construction to more fuel efficient cars to alternative energy sources for inside homes.

In his keynote address at the forum, Congressman Tim Bishop, said that “green collar jobs” are on the rise and we can only hope the new Congress — under leadership from a new president — will prove more successful in furthering the effort than they have been in recent years.

During this difficult time we do know of at least one local company, however, that is booming by offering consumers alternative energy sources and products for their home. If they can prove to be successful at the worst possible time for a business to be in business since the Great Depression, then they must be on to something.

Additionally, we also applaud Southampton Town for all that they have done this year to create mandates on green energy building practices, and we hope this will further help push a new industry.

It is not simply a business boom that we hope to create, it is business whose very benefits will help us all. We should be excited about that.

The East End has long struggled to find a niche economy that would provide decent living wages to residents. The service economy will take us only so far. Surrounded as we are by the unspoiled beauty of one of the last great places on Earth, doesn’t it make sense to think about creating here one of the first green business community models for the 21^st century?

Popularity: 7% [?]

The already strong School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University became even stronger on Friday when the university announced plans to establish the new Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at the Southampton campus. SoMas professor Dr. Ellen Pikitch, who was named the institute’s Executive Director, called the announcement a “high water mark” and said the new research team will build on the program’s “impressive track record” and together will make it an “even more powerful force” in ocean conservation.

The institute, which is expected to be completed in the fall of 2010, is being made possible by a $4 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, will be located where the current marine center now stands, on Little Neck Road just south of the Southampton campus. The institute is also expected to benefit from $6.9 million in state funding.

“Our oceans are in a state of emergency,” said Pikitch. “[The institute] will generate the science needed to better safeguard threatened marine life and ecosystems and we will use those findings to shape smarter policy.”

She said the university plans to enlist a number of top scientists, beginning this fall, and their first project will be to establish a forage fish task force to look at the rapid depletion of small schooling fish such as sardines, anchovies and menhaden. These fish serve as the primary food source for most ocean mammals, larger fish and seabirds. As a result of the health trends involving fish oil supplements, which are believed to reduce the chance of heart disease, and the demand for livestock feed which also uses the small fish, their population is dwindling. Pitcitck described the over-fishing of forage fish as “pulling the rug out from under ocean ecosystems.”

A number of elected officials were on hand at Friday’s event at the site of the new institute, including U.S. Congressman Tim Bishop and New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele. Bishop, who once served as Southampton College provost when the school was part of the Long Island University system, said, “It was wonderful to see the investment being made [in the university].”

He said that both he and Thiele often face the challenge of balancing commercial fishing with recreation fishing, both of which are prevalent on the East End. He said many times they battle with the decisions and policies they make being based on “good science.” He said with the institute in Southampton now in the works, he felt “confident” knowing the decisions they make would be based on the excellent research that will take place there.

Thiele graduated from Southampton College. He said everyone knew it was “diamond in the rough” that only suffered because of a lack of “support. Thiele also brought up the fact that ocean conservation is “near and dear” to everyone on the East End. He mentioned the fact that the Shinnecock and Montauk canals are the two largest commercial fishing ports in the state.

President of Stony Brook University Shirley Strum Kenny said, “This new institute was important not only to Southampton, but to New York State, to the nation and to the world.”

Stony Brook University is the only institution in New York State that offers degrees in marine science at the bachelors, masters and doctorate level.

Future site of multi-million dollar marine science study center is pictured above

 

Popularity: 4% [?]

Every July in Southampton, novelists, poets and other writers come together like a giant family on a holiday weekend, each year with new faces and old. Director of the MFA in Writing and Literature program at Stony Brook Southampton Robert Reeves would no doubt be the patriarchal figure in the bunch, while other writers and faculty like Lou Ann Walker, Roger Rosenblatt and Billy Collins play the role of the unruly offspring who return each year.
“I’m a repeat offender,” said Collins, who is taking part in his seventh consecutive Southampton Writers Conference (SWC).
Rosenblatt joked, “I think I come before the parole board next year.”
The conference, which author Tom Wolfe has called the “best in the country,” is celebrating it’s 33rd year. There are many aspects that set it apart from the numerous other conferences, and one is the family vibe it fosters.
“We’ve created a sense of the familiar,” said Reeves, “with people returning, as they often do.”
Collins described the inner core of returning faculty as adding “stability” while the newer writers add “freshness.” Other “inner core” members include Frank McCourt, Melissa Bank and Matt Klam. This year Amy Hempel, Christopher Durang and Derek Walcott will embody the “freshness.”
Unlike most family get-togethers, according to Rosenblatt there is very little, if any, bickering with his contemporaries.
Said Rosenblatt, “The oddity is that we all get along, even sober, which is saying something.”
What truly sets the conference apart from others, though, is the fact that it’s a teaching conference. Most writers conferences include fly-by appearances from big name authors who drop in, read their work, sign some books and then skip town, or maybe sit in on one or two panel discussions. The SWC involves intense daily workshops where participants are afforded the opportunity to engage with respected authors and hone their craft.
“Most conferences are just for showing off,” said Rosenblatt. “Which is fine. But even writers tire of showing off. At the center of this conference is teaching.”
“We have plenty of big names,” said Reeves, “but we’re not about celebrity, per se. We are about honoring the craft and the people who care about writing as art.”
Collins admitted to the conference becoming a little more “glamorous” as first Long Island University and now Stony Brook University has become “increasingly aware” of the demographic of Southampton in July. He said that awareness, however, has not taken away from the goal.
“Overall the conference still has a serious nuts and bolts commitment to the workshops,” he said. “There is work to be done.”
One of the benefits of the workshop approach, according to Collins, is the breaking down of the author myth.
“[Participants] come into very close contact with well established professional writers. The hope is they find they’re just as human as anyone else. Though they pretend to be gods, they are just regular mortals who have kept at it for a very long time.”
Walker said she benefits from the workshops just as much as the participants.
“What’s always surprising to me each year is how much I learn,” she said. “You feel recharged, as if you’ve gone away for a vacation. You find yourself rethinking how you approach your writing and how you view other people’s writing.”
Rosenblatt said he goes into every workshop with the goal of allowing his students to find their “original language.”
“That’s a center of all good writing,” he said. “I gear everything in class to encourage [that], so they know they have something in them that no one else has. It takes work to discover what Twain called the difference between the word and the right word.”
The SWC has established itself as an institution on the East End, and this year two other bookend conferences were created with the aim of doing the same. Last week Walker presided over the inaugural Children’s Literature Conference.
“It was quite extraordinary,” said Walker. “It exceeded any expectations we could have had. One woman said it was a life changing experience. I’m definitely hooked and I’m already looking forward to next year.”
After the SWC, the inaugural Southampton Screenwriting Conference will be held from July 30 to August 3. About the two new conferences, Reeves said, “I think it can become a wonderful tradition. We have an opportunity to fill up the summer and really make it a writers’ summer.”
In a time when some see the written word as becoming increasingly endangered, Reeves acknowledged that he couldn’t predict the future. He did however say it has no bearing on the SWC and that people will always care about the art of story telling.
“Poetry at one time was a primary genre,” noted Reeves. “It was at the center of the culture. The novel has not always been around and it’s not written in stone that the novel will always be around, but people will always want the equivalent.”
“This is the place for them. If [the importance of the written word] is declining in the world, so be it. It hasn’t declined to us.”

Top Photo: (L to R) Ursula Hegi, Matthew Klam, Meg Wolitzer, Robert Reeves, Billy Collins, Frank McCourt, Carol Muske-Dukes, Lou Ann Walker, Melissa Bank, Roger Rosenblatt and Marsha Norman.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The new Avram Theater at Stony Brook Southampton. John Bayles photo.

When Stony Brook University took over the Avram Theater two years ago, visitors had to squeeze into tiny seats with little desks attached to them, and for good reason, since the space often doubled as a classroom. Now, after a million dollar renovation to the theater and the adjacent gallery, that’s no longer the case as the narrow, old seats have been replaced with plush new ones, sans the little desks.
The two-decade-old building has been a leading space for arts events on the East End and now with its new facelift, the university hopes to max out its full potential by hosting concerts, drama productions and author readings. The space will be officially christened next Thursday, July 10, when the gallery opens with an exhibit featuring works by Sag Harbor illustrator James McMullan and the theater hosts to the first installment of the music series, “Music at Southampton: Sustainable Treasures.”
“The theater and the gallery is really a one, two punch,” said university president’s chief of staff Linda Merians.
Like the theater, the gallery was less than functional when Stony Brook inherited it. Its concrete patio was useless because of a large satellite dish that sat, pressed up against the door. Now the dish has been removed, flowers have been planted and the patio will be used for receptions. Media Relations Director Darren Johnson said the two spaces now have a “synergy” that was missing before.
Gallery director Marc Fasanella said the plan is to not have the Avram Gallery operate like other university galleries where students’ and professors’ work hangs for months at a time, but instead to allow more of a “museum quality.”
As for the 439-seat theater, which according to Merians “doesn’t have a bad seat in the house,” the renovation covered everything from the carpet to the walls to the sound and lighting. Theater manager Leonard Ziemkiewicz said, “Aside from the acoustics, the design and layout make the Avram one of the most audience-friendly theaters on the East End.”
The most notable difference between the old Avram and the new one is perhaps the most important aspect of a theater, the stage. Ziemkiewicz described the old stage as “angular,” like a “stop sign cut in half,” while the new stage’s thrust is rounded. The stage also has a semi-spring floor, which allows for dance recitals.
Another aspect of the stage, three traveling curtains, makes it more desirable not just for audiences but for performers as well. The stage can be utilized fully, or curtains can be drawn to make it more intimate. Merians said opera singers rarely have the chance to sing in a recital hall setting and that having the choice of a smaller stage allows them to sing songs not included in their normal repertoire. One such singer, soprano Christine Brewer, will have that chance to tone it down when she appears at the Avram in August, as opposed to when she’s on stage at the Metropolitan Opera. Ziemkiewicz said “intimacy” is the aim of the new Avram, to allow people the opportunity to witness the “marriage of music and language.”

Popularity: 4% [?]