Letter to the editor: Visitors should pay for contributing to Maine’s carbon problems

ANOTHER VIEW: The carbon emissions challenges

I do appreciate your paper’s coverage of the governor’s proposed zero-emissions standards by 2045 – when a great percentage of the present population will not be here – but other pertinent questions should be addressed.

At present, we have several million vehicles entering Maine every year from all over the country. How will we be asked to compensate for their emissions that will not meet our standards?

While we can enact laws and legislation to curb Mainers’ vehicle emissions, we can give only so much while being expected to carry the burden of emissions of those vehicles from away. How will what we sacrifice by expense and choice of more-efficient vehicles equate to controlling the expected zero-emissions standards?

As recently addressed in your Dec. 15 article (“Reducing emissions from transportation is a long, difficult road for Maine”), in a largely rural state like Maine with farms and businesses that demand utilitarian vehicles whose owners have limitations of efficient choices to begin with, how much will they be charged for noncompliance?

As an owner of a hybrid vehicle, I am all for doing what is necessary to address our state’s climate change issues, but I do not think it is fair to pay for those from away who contribute to our carbon problems every day of the year in ever-increasing numbers.

Loretta M. Turner

Biddeford