In the 1960s, our political parties made deals with each other in Washington. They passed good laws by both political parties, but this doesn’t happen much today. Now each side believes that it alone has the good ideas, and gridlock rules our federal government. And now this same extreme ideology threatens Maine.

Our governor believes his policies are righteous, but he is pursuing an energy policy that would harm Maine residents, especially our children. His proposed legislation and appointments to the Public Utilities Commission are geared to promote the use of fossil fuels and remove all incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Climate change is a form of generational abuse. Fossil fuels harm our food production and the economy that the next generation will have to endure. Why would our governor push to stop the progress that Maine has made to reduce climate change?

The problem is that Gov. Paul LePage is very ideological, and he has been misled into thinking that climate change is a vast liberal fraud. This is an unbelievable conspiracy theory, but people fall for it if ideology does too much of their thinking for them.

And we elected LePage, which reveals two more problems that we can change. We tend to vote for leaders mostly out of party loyalty, and we have ignored the danger of climate change because the growth of this threat has been gradual until recently.

Party loyalty is fine, but only if we elect politicians who are willing to look at both sides of issues and be bipartisan. We have to protect our state government from getting lost in ideological gridlock like our federal government. And we have to vote only for people who will protect Maine from climate change, regardless of their party.

Richard Thomas

Waterville