I witnessed two rotting seal carcasses on the coast of Vinalhaven, part of the 400 counted that have been recently killed by viruses possibly connected to the warming of the ocean. On the same day I listened to a news story about our governor not releasing funds for Medicaid.

Are we so messed up as a society that we can’t see that failing to care of others and the climate in which we survive are in the long run more expensive on all levels? The less preventive care people get, the more costly an unchecked illness is to treat. The more we ignore and deny our responsibility for climate change, the less prepared we will be for its costly consequences.

If seals are a weathervane for the future, we are sinking in the slime of their demise.

Each of us can give what we can towards a future that hopefully will be respectful of others’ needs and that of the environment as we pass our world down to the next generations.

Ruth Cutler

Vinalhaven