Your May 12 editorial, “Warming waters clear warning for lobster industry,” lays out the facts. Oceans are warming. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster. The lobster industry has collapsed in Connecticut, Rhode Island and now Cape Cod. The lobster catch off York County has shrunk, despite recent record landings in 2015 from Penobscot Bay and Down East.

You state that: “It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see one possible future for the Maine lobster industry.” You note: “Fortunately, regulators are watching.” Then you happily announce new studies and urge implementation of studies already completed.

But that’s sugarcoating. Everybody knows (though some don’t yet admit it) that global warming is the result of huge (40 percent) increases in concentrations of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in Earth’s atmosphere. Both are a direct result of man’s activities since the dawning of the industrial revolution. And most is due to our burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

So further studies of warming or acidification in the Gulf of Maine will not tell us anything we don’t already know about what we need to do. Why not, instead, call for action to reduce our dependence on coal, oil and natural gas to power just about everything we do. A Republican solution, proposed by George Shultz, treasury secretary to President Reagan, is carbon fee and dividend. It would impose a steadily rising fee on extracted carbon fuels, with all revenues returned to households. It’s revenue neutral and would shift the economy towards renewables. With border adjustments it would apply worldwide.

We don’t need crystal balls. We just need Congress to act. Speak up! They need your political will.

Check out citizensclimatelobby.org for further details.

Peter Garrett, PhD

Mid Maine Group Leader, Citizens’ Climate Lobby

Winslow

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