When I first came to live in northern New England some 50 years ago, one of the great attractions was winter. It was in my blood, and the snows of the 1960s had reached legendary proportions, drifting over roofs and sheds.
People were still talking about it, but there was plenty of winter through the 1970s and into the ‘80s. A new reporter who’d just moved from Texas couldn’t get over the snow piling up in storm after storm, and I was impressed too.
Boston was pummeled with two mammoth blizzards in 1978 — I was there for the first — and a few winters later natural gas supplies ran out amid record-breaking, snowless cold.
These days, we wonder where those winters went, and the answer is all too obvious. Global warming has begun to bite.
This winter has been marked by rains and heavy flooding in December and again in January, inland then coastal. No one’s to blame, but we’re all responsible — all of us.
OCEAN PARK, ME – JANUARY 13: Old Orchard Beach firefighters respond to a call at the flooded intersection of West Grand and Temple avenues on Saturday. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
The first credible warnings came in the 1960s, and Sen. George Mitchell of Maine conducted the first congressional hearings in 1988, featuring prescient NASA scientist James Hansen. We did almost nothing in response.
My environmentalist friends express disbelief, but some deeper truths have been at work, separate from the contemptible “climate denial” of too many politicians.
It’s difficult to convince societies and nations to make radical changes until there’s tangible, irrefutable evidence that a scientific theory is correct. The danger is that whatever response we mount now will be too late.
Yet the history and pre-history of the human species chronicles enormous resilience and ingenuity. We could have died out many times, but have not.
Damage to other species is equally or even more alarming, but we must heed my favorite airline rule: attach your own oxygen mask before trying to help the being next to you.
Those alive today must do what we can as individuals, aggregating those efforts into a movement that spans oceans and continents, every inhabited place.
It’s encouraging that in Nordic countries young people are taking to the outdoors, laying down their phones. Winter as their parents knew it may be disappearing, and they want to enjoy it while they can.
I take the same approach. I logged seven consecutive days of cross-country skiing in early December, then 10 more in mid-January. Each outing is precious.
No one knows whether we can avert catastrophe, but it’s certain to come if we do nothing.
In Maine, the potential renewable energy capital of New England, we have a particular responsibility.
We flunked the first test when a disingenuous referendum campaign against hydropower from Canada delayed a critical link by at least two years and dramatically drove up costs.
We’re doing poorly with a plan approved by the Legislature to connect the grid to the proposed King Pine wind project in Aroostook County. Beset by municipal moratoriums and landowner opposition, a Missouri company halted work because it was obvious the line would cost far more than its contract envisioned.
Maine has had real difficulty building large projects of any kind, but the lack of renewable infrastructure is particularly costly.
Only a widespread change of attitude will suffice. Farmers whose fields transmission lines cross could admit that they can still farm around the towers, with adequate compensation.
Voters will have to understand that creating new power line sections involves cutting down trees, and that the affected proportion of woodlands (and farmlands) is quite manageable.
Beyond that, Maine needs a public agency to site generation, power lines, battery storage and other infrastructure, and acquire essential pieces to guarantee the new system will work. The Public Utilities Commission, trying to do it all, is clearly inadequate.
The key energy use sector of transportation also needs an overhaul. The Department of Transportation just introduced, with fanfare, a record three-year, $4.74 billion work plan.
All but a tiny fragment goes to roads, bridges and vehicle infrastructure. It’s late in the day for DOT to live up to its name and vigorously investigate all transportation options, many of them far less energy-intensive than even an “electrified” vehicle fleet.
There’s transit, rail, bus, trails and e-bike commuting routes, just for starters. Young Mainers are shunning expensive cars and many would like to do without.
Portland, Maine’s most progressive city, must get serious about transportation on its congested, narrow downtown streets. More parking garages are not the answer.
In short, there’s enough work for all, and then some. The question is whether we’re willing to roll up our sleeves and get to it.
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