Our global warming prospects: We Americans live in a never-never land of great wealth, open spaces, security and comfort. We are daily and chronically oblivious to the crowding, heat and day-to-day living constraints most populations endure. Global warming will not leave us special and exempt from approaching climate catastrophe. We must lead the way to energy independence from fossil fuels. Global warming isn’t just another engineering problem some of us will get rich solving. The world’s poor and suffering billions near the equator will not die quietly as we research and implement without urgency.

Climate danger will require massive public and private effort and expense. What has been ignored in public discussion is the enormous opportunity for expansion of small private business. We must have diverse home energy production for local consumption everywhere possible. Think rooftop solar panels, community panel farms, geothermal heat exchangers, etc. Well-balanced, properly designed home systems will net energy income to their owners and countless new jobs for small independent companies. Public utilities will be unable to cover our earth with enough power lines to serve everyone at the comfort levels of today’s carbon-based heating systems. Energy security must come from both utility and private efforts.

For my home, I am installing geothermal heat exchangers and will this summer be adding solar panels to a south-facing roof. My home is fully insulated but I expect to double up on windowed basement portions. The goal is energy neutrality over a full year. At that rate I will pay back the conversion cost in not more than ten years. After that, home heating expenses will cost only normal maintenance of the geo and solar systems. Yes, it will take money and effort over the next two years, but it will pay back and we as humans have no choice but to act and save our environment. Let’s all get going!

Phillip Davis

West Gardiner