Making sense of conflicting environmental messages
Bob Knight
Last Sunday’s opinion pages celebrating the 51st Earth Day were appropriately filled with messages about the importance of protecting our environment. But what was interesting to me was the juxtaposition of conflicting claims by environmentalists, agricultural representatives and state officials.
Interested readers of The Sun may be trying to make sense out of their divergent views. Here is my take.
The first piece I read was written by Dr. Ann Shortelle, executive director of the St. Johns River Water Management District. In her column, “Make water conservation part of your regular routine,” she reiterated her oft-repeated message that homeowners need to do more to reduce their personal uses of water.
Water system maintenance to begin in May
The method of water treatment for Pinellas County and its wholesale customers will be temporarily modified between Sunday, May 16, and Saturday, June 5. The first of two short-term changes from chloramine to chlorine disinfection in 2021 is a routine maintenance measure designed to optimize water quality.
Those that will benefit from this program include Pinellas County Utilities water customers, as well as customers in the cities of Clearwater, Pinellas Park and Safety Harbor.
The disinfection program is designed to maintain distribution system water quality and minimize the potential for any future problems. There have been no indications of significant bacteriological contamination problems in the system. The water will continue to meet all federal and state standards for safe drinking water.
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Birds of both the same and different species will watch a fight and can influence the fighters, something called the “audience effect.”
An example of the audience effect in humans, when the audience can affect competitors, is a sports team’s home field advantage.
“Because the audience effect has been a focus of human research for so long, animal researchers started observing the same behavior in fish and birds and many other species,” says Katie Sieving, a professor at the University of Florida. “But until now, animal research on this topic nearly always considered audience effects to be a within-species phenomenon. For example, a male fighting fish might fight harder when a female watches the fight.”
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