Our Earth is very old. For more than 4 billion years, it has spun around its sun halfway to the edge of our spiral galaxy, sometimes boiling hot, sometimes sheathed in ice, sometimes wobbling a little, forever remarkable.

For the last 10,000 to 12,000 years (a mere blink of an eye, geologically speaking), a “long summer” of relatively stable climate has allowed humans to disperse all over the globe. Ultimately, small groups of hunter-gatherers paused, invented agriculture and produced a population explosion with civilization as we know it.

Now, however, that period of “climatic grace” is over. We humans have grown so powerful, so clever, and there are so many of us that we affect our entire planet. With rising carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution, last year was the warmest on record. Ice is melting rapidly in the Arctic, sea levels keep rising, the Gulf of Maine is warmer and more acidic, shellfish and coral reefs are suffering, lobsters are moving north along with ticks on land, and moose can’t stand the heat. In other words, climate change is upon us.

So what can a person do in the face of it? As an artist who loves the Earth and its creatures, I paint. But instead of depicting the horrific mistakes of what human greed and carelessness have done, I show the irreplaceable beauty and mystery of our one-and-only home. I’m saying, “Look at it, love it, take care of it,” and hope to raise awareness.

I recommend to anyone who is interested, a book, “The End of the Long Summer,” by Dianne Dumanoski. It includes the story of how we humans actually cooperated to slow the growth of a dangerous ozone hole over the South Pole. After that, some people might join Sustain Mid-Maine Coalition (www.sustainmidmaine.org) or the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL.org).

Jean Ann Pollard

Winslow