Do you remember when:
Maine hunters and fishermen had never seen a tick unless they travelled far south?
No one in Maine had ever been sickened or killed by a tick-borne disease?
Mosquitos were a nuisance and not a potential threat to life and health?
There was a Maine shrimp fishery?
Hundred-year storms were really rare?
Portland’s back bay and waterfront rarely flooded?
Clams and eelgrass were abundant and green crabs were only an occasional nuisance?
Shellfish farmers weren’t concerned about water pH preventing shell development?
Coastal towns did not need to plan around projected sea-level rise?
All New England coastal states had a productive lobster fishery?
Owning property “on the ocean” was always a good thing?
The gardening season really began at Memorial Day and ended about Labor Day?
If you remember some or all of these things, you know that major change are happening to our world. These changes are only some of the easily observable local effects of climate change. Climate change is here, it’s happening now, and future projections are dire unless Congress acts quickly and decisively to control the release of greenhouse gasses.
A bill that will do that without adding more regulations or growing the government, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763) has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support. The bill is effective, good for people, good for the economy, bipartisan and revenue neutral.
I encourage you to educate yourself about the bill then contact your U.S. representative — Chellie Pingree or Jared Golden — to support this bill.
Bill Lee
Waterville
(Editor’s note: The writer is not the local attorney by the same name.)
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