Top Stories of 2010

(12/31/10) This is our final 8 O'clock Hour of 2010. This week, Brian Mann has been looking back at his top-five picks of the biggest stories of the year.

This morning, he turns to economic news and a deal announced earlier this month that could reshape Plattsburgh's economy.

(12/30/10) If November's election shook up the North Country's political landscape, the region also saw big changes in the environmental community. Layoffs and reorganizations continued among green groups in the Adirondacks.

As Brian Mann reports, after a turbulent 2010, it's unclear how which conservation groups will continue to play a prominent role in the future.

(12/30/10) As we make our way through this final week of the year, Brian Mann has been checking in with his five picks for the top stories of 2010.

In 2010, politics dominated much of the headlines, with the midterm election tossing out some of the North Country's most prominent incumbents. Democrats fared poorly overall, with state Senator Darrel Aubertine and Representative Scott Murphy losing key races.

But according to Brian's year-end wrap-up two political figures emerged as the most memorable.

(12/29/10) The deadly bat disease known as 'white nose syndrome' was first identified in northern New York over three years ago. It's still spreading rapidly, with outbreaks confirmed this year in Ontario and as far away as Tennessee.

Here in the North Country, biologists now say the disease has wiped out 95% of the largest bat colonies.

Brian Mann was with a team of biologists when they returned early last spring to the cave near Albany where the first bats infected with white nose were discovered. He sent this audio postcard.

(12/28/10) As we make our way through this final week of the year, Brian Mann will be checking in with his five picks for the top stories of 2010.

There was plenty of tough news for the North Country, from rising unemployment rates to the struggles over state budget cuts.

But a bright spot for the region was the brilliant showing of this region's Olympic athletes at the Vancouver Winter games.

Brian Mann remembers the triumph of Bill Demong, who grew up in the Adirondacks.

(12/28/10) As 2010 draws to a close, we're revisiting important environmental stories of the year. Climate change tops the list, as scientists struggle to understand how global changes will impact local regions.

This morning, Brian Mann talks with Paul Smith's scientist and researcher Curt Stager. His work often takes him far afield, to sample lake bottoms in Africa and Russia for evidence of ecological changes over geological time.
This year he focussed closer to home, on the impact of climate change in the Champlain Valley. Stager co-authored the study with Adirondack-based journalist Mary Thill. The research was funded by the Adirondack Nature Conservancy in an effort to find out how global warming might affect one relatively small region.

The study shows that since the 1970s, temperatures have already risen in the Champlain Valley by roughly two degrees Fahrenheit. Increased precipitation has also raised the lake level by an average of a foot. Warming is expected to continue over the next century.

Stager told Brian Mann that scientists are struggling to understand the local impacts of climate change.

(12/27/10) As we make our way through this final week of the year, Brian Mann will be checking in with his top-five picks for the most important stories of 2010.

In a year when state budget deficits drove the debate in Albany, Brian's looks back first at the renewed debate over the future of the region's prison industry.

(12/27/10) This week, NCPR will revisit some of the important environmental stories and conversations of the past year. Environmental issues often span more than a year, more than many years.
For a couple of decades now, "climate change" has had a global context. It's beena story of far away places and exotic animals: polar bears and shrinking arctic ice. A book out this year from ecologist Jerry Jenkins' bursts that bubble.

"Climate Change in the Adirondacks" paints a detailed, intimate picture of how the global warming will affect our lives here in the North Country.

Jenkins works for the Wildlife Conservation Society's Adirondack Program. He says temperatures in the Adirondack-North Country have already risen by roughly two degrees Fahrenheit. And he told Brian Mann that reducing carbon pollution will mean making decisions that no one is going to like.