To the editor:
I appreciate your coverage of recent solar farms opened or under consideration in Lincoln County, including the Morris Farm most recently, and a proposal for Bristol. We installed solar panels on our home in Damariscotta in February as part of the Solarize Lincoln County effort, and hope more people will invest in this increasingly affordable contribution to reducing our climate footprint while meeting energy needs in a manner that creates new jobs in Maine.
I hope too that our governor finally recognizes that solar power is an important source of new jobs in Maine as he periodically seeks to make political hay out of jobs that are lost (perhaps fewer jobs would be lost if Maine were not perceived nationally as having a highly dysfunctional executive branch).
That being said, I am disappointed yet again to see a letter in the April 21 issue of the LCN (the day before Earth Day no less) referring to global warming as a “cliche” based on politics rather than science (“This global-warming cliche”).
This is simply not true – false, a lie, a mistaken impression, call it what you will, climate-change denial will simply not wash anymore. That is one reason the Paris climate agreement is likely to go into effect sooner than anticipated, and why all nations and most businesses are recognizing the need to take action to keep fossil fuels in the ground and invest in the transition to a post-fossil-fuel economy.
I have taught environmental law and studied climate change for many years, and apart from recommending the book (and film) “Merchants of Doubt” to your readers, I can suggest several useful websites that address the business case and response to this serious challenge: the Rocky Mountain Institute, founded by Amory Lovins, rmi.org; CERES: Mobilizing Business Leadership for a Sustainable World, ceres.org; and Yale Climate Connections, yaleclimateconnections.org. Coastal communities in Maine in particular need to be mindful of the stakes, and addressing this reality later will simply be too late.
