Connecticut Green Living

Have you noticed anything unusual in the news lately? Or more accurately, noticed anything missing? Yes, it's been a long time since the last U.S. mass shooting. That was the February 26 Milwaukee brewery shooting, in which six people sadly lost their lives. To my European, Asian and African readers, this may sound like a dramatic bit of news that occurred not that long ago. Americans know a different story. In 2019 there were 417 mass shoootings, which include those where no one was killed or just a few people, according to Gunviolence.org; and while their records indicate that shootings are still occurring, the rate is clearly falling. According to Wikipedia records, there were 32 deaths from gun violence in mass shootings by this time last year; there have been 11 such deaths this year. Mass shootings in this sense means large enough to have made the mainstream news. While the landscape has shifted in terms of gun violence, undoubtedly domestic violence is surging with so many f...

"These are the times that try men's souls ..." - Thomas Paine. Although Thomas Paine was referring to an entirely different crisis in 1776, during this health emergency we are in a similar way forced to come together for our country ... and our world. We are forced to stop thinking only of ourselves while at the same time steeling ourselves for worsening crises. We are faced with the unknown, and we know that some will fall and others survive. Whether you are overloading grocery carts with Charmin or practicing Zen meditation, this health crisis has gone viral. Perhaps in the 21st century we will have to abandon that phrase. Here in Connecticut we have seven reported cases , but because of testing shortages there is no way to know the true number. Nearby New York has the second-most Covid-19 cases in the country at 325*; Massachusetts has 108 reported cases. Schools are closing, as are libraries, public gatherings, Broadway. What is not closing, though, is the human...

WalletHub, a personal finance website, has lauded our state with green praise once again. We've ranked fifth in the union overall for environmental practices, even tops for water quality. Analysts culled data on everything from rate of waste recycling to soil, air, and water quality. While we weren't high on every criterion, our overall rating was superb. Rankings in order were: #1 Vermont, #2 Massachusetts , #3 Oregon, #4 Washington, and #5 the Nutmeg State . The worst rating on the green scale was Wyoming. I got a chance to send some questions to one of their analysts, Jill Gonzalez. Following is a transcript of that discussion: Jill, explain to me, please, what methods you all used to determine these scores and can you quantify them? We compared the states across three quantifiable categories: 1. Environmental Quality, 2. Eco-Friendly Behaviors and 3. Climate-Change Contributions. These categories were evaluated using 20 relevant key metrics. We then calculated the o...