Everywhere the world is struggling with the effects of climate change. Droughts, floods, record high temperatures. Our lobsters moving northwards. You may agree or not that the change is human caused, but there can be no doubt that there is a world crisis at hand and if there is something you and I can do about it we had better give it our best effort. If we don’t try, and predictions for sea-level rise are realized, to take just one result, likely your children, certainly your grandchildren, will suffer enormously.

A Boston Globe article says, “The consequences of climate change on Boston are expected to be far more calamitous than previous studies have suggested; sea levels could rise more than 10 feet by the end of the century…. plunging about 30 percent of Boston under water.” Is that a worst-case scenario? Probably, but even a two-foot rise, now thought to be a minimum, would be disastrous.

The solution is not to build levees around our coastlines, but instead to slow or halt climate change. It can be done; it is as basic as adjusting our lifestyle to use less fossil fuel and more renewable energy. That’s a tall order to be sure, but we can do it; we must do it. Do it for your children; do it for the planet. On the positive side there is cleaner air and water and a whole new economy of renewable technologies and products with jobs to match. Consider contacting your legislators in Washington: Poliquin, Pingree, Collins and King. Send a simple message via their website. Let them know that climate change is the greatest threat to American and world security we have ever faced. Encourage them to take leadership. They need to know you care.

Christiaan Beeuwkes

Mercer