It is easy to convince oneself that climate change is somebody else’s problem.

Too bad for Europe and England, we say, with their record-breaking heat waves, but we have other problems. And we do. But climate change is affecting Mainers in ways that without speedy intervention make other problems worse. Winters are shorter, snowpack reduced, and seasonal dates have changed. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the Earth’s oceans. These factors are quickly changing our ecosystem — the ecosystem that includes fishing and agriculture, both essential to Maine’s economy — too quickly for us to respond.

Recently the Supreme Court drastically reduced the EPA’s power to regulate businesses, effectively giving corporations permission to continue with climate-destructive policies. Their stated intent was to put regulation in the hands of Congress, but then Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia opposed the climate change provisions of the Build Back Better bill.

We need to advocate for clean energy, and to elect politicians who will support legislation to increase clean energy sources. We need to support programs like the Citizen’s Climate Lobby’s carbon fee and dividend program, in which a fee is levied on fossil fuel companies; the “dividend” reimburses households for price hikes.

We need to switch our own households to clean energy where it is available. And as Alice Stevens said in her letter of July 18, we need to do it now.

 

Elizabeth Koopman

Hallowell