2 days Ago
Have you heard about Third Act Maine, a group of Mainers over 60 who are determined to protect future generations from runaway climate change? Expect to hear more from us this year, now that President-elect Donald Trump has declared his intention to reverse all the laws and regulations that were enacted to slow climate change. Remember when he asked the fossil fuel industry for a billion dollars for his campaign in return for this promise? He wasn’t kidding. Richard Thomas of Waterville is a member of Third Act Maine.
Put bluntly, Trump’s anti-climate policy declares war on our children, who will bear the brunt of accelerated climate change. We are not powerless in this fight, but Trump and his Republican allies in Congress will act quickly, so we have to speak up today. The world is warming and you’ve seen the changes in our weather.
Further warming could thaw the methane that is frozen on the ocean floor and in Arctic permafrost, killing our chances of slowing climate change. The Maine Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission just told us to prepare for more damaging weather like last winter’s rain and wind storms. These devastating storms will only get worse if our leaders support Trump’s call to “Drill, baby, drill!” Why would the Republican Party turn its back on climate progress? Because they are beholden to the fossil fuel industry, which has been paying billions of dollars for decades to politicians and political media to spread the lie that climate change is either a hoax or not a big deal.
I don’t know if removing regulations on fossil fuel use and ending subsidies for green energy would give us lower gas prices. But it is clear that the rich investors and oil company CEOs would get immensely richer. The result will be short-lived profits for Big Oil, and long-term suffering for the rest of us and our children.
We need two things: affordable energy today, and a livable world for our grandchildren. We need to find the balance point that lets us do both. But the Republican leadership is not looking for a balance point.
They want to tip the scales entirely in the direction of the fossil fuel industry. Now is the time for us to speak up. Join Third Act Maine.
Email your federal and state representatives and implore them to protect our future. Sen. Collins has previously sponsored legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but she also accepts donations from the fossil fuel industry.
We ask her now to step up and be the climate hero that our children need. Someone has to lead the Republican Party out of the wilderness. They have to start representing our families, not multinational corporations, and they have to start right now.
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