The newspaper’s Jan. 1 editorial stated that Maine must act on the painful lessons of 2023. It pointed out that one lesson was the obvious arrival of climate-related disasters here and the resulting need for greater citizen involvement in building community resiliency.

But while important, resiliency efforts are like Band-Aids that do nothing to reduce the growing threat of climate chaos. It’s understandable your paper focuses on resilience because it’s local, but rampant disinformation is another reason resilience often trumps mitigation.

Doubt overcomes many about the need for clean energy because for decades politicians and fossil fuel interests have repeated the falsehood that climate science isn’t settled yet. They maintain that clean energy and a strong economy are incompatible opposites. These illusory “truths” are repeated over and over and become perceived reality for some of us; wishful thinking does the rest.

Real progress is to be found through legislation, particularly at the national level. Success will require citizens to vote for climate-concerned candidates and actively advocate for effective legislation. Making our voices heard is extremely important right now, and this was missing from your paper’s editorial.

Let’s make mining fossil fuels costly for the corporations still at it by taxing their climate-wrecking products and return the proceeds to all Americans. Let’s push hard for clean-energy permitting reform, which will provide jobs for many. We can attack the root causes of the climate crisis with measures that reduce the threat and boost the economy at the same time.

Sam Saltonstall
Brunswick

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