Global warming is not a hoax — act now

Climate activists are struggling with finding a persuasive message that will convince citizens that it is time to take climate action at the national and global levels. For years, activists have followed the science. Climate models proved time and again that scientists’ forecasts were accurate. We were told by naysayers and fossil fuel allies, “the science was uncertain” and “people don’t respond to doom and gloom.” We tried to put a positive spin on the science: We still have time to slow and then stop global warming if we act decisively.

We have just lived through the two hottest years on record. Disastrous climate events are unfolding faster than anticipated. “Heating is accelerating, outpacing scientists’ expectations.” “Doom and gloom” scenarios were conservative, but inaction has been our response since President Reagan dismantled the solar panels that President Carter erected on the White House.

As a nation, we are horrified watching California burn. Yes, there have always been wildfires, but global warming has compounded the conditions that have supersized wildfires. Misinformation about the causes of the wildfires (blame Democratic policies) is in bad faith. Global warming is not a hoax. Believe misinformation at your own peril. We are not immune from the consequences of a fast-warming planet caused by our burning fossil fuels.

What message will inspire people to act? Will rising, unaffordable home insurance costs get us to act? Will paying higher taxes for increasingly occurring, billion-dollar climate disasters convince us that climate change is real? Will people protest when food prices increase more than they already have due to crop failures and livestock deaths caused by “weird” weather? Will surviving a catastrophic climate event spark action?

If you are worried and feel powerless, you are not alone. Working in a group with like-minded, concerned neighbors is an antidote for despair. Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address the national and global climate crisis. CCLers call, write and lobby our members of Congress to work across the aisle to pass federal climate legislation that will promote the transition to renewable energy.

Dorothy Jones,
Brunswick

Extending education at the wrong end?

I applaud Gov. Mills’ continued extension of public education in her recent budget. However, I question if this support is extended on the right end, two years of free community college, or if we would see greater benefit by extending public education to early childhood.

The goal of free community college is to better prepare students to live and work in Maine. This strategy assumes that secondary schools are incapable of preparing students for the work force and that other critical workforce factors, such as housing, child care and transportation are available to young people. Adding two years of general education after high school ignores these challenges and is, as a result, a costly program with limited results.

Consider, instead, the goal of giving every 3- and 4-year-old child in Maine a free education for the two years leading up to our current public education. Early childhood research is unequivocal — the preschool experience matters! It matters in children’s development of core competencies such as language and social skills that influence future academic success. It also matters to their families, providing child care and support that are elusive and too costly for most young Mainers. Funding public preschool would be of greater value because it mitigates two problems with one program.

In a perfect world, public education could be extended on both ends. And perhaps this could be achieved with income eligibility standards for both programs, instead of a costly “free for all” program. I urge the Legislature to use the upcoming budget debates to closely examine all elements influencing our youngest workforce and to put education dollars where they will have the greatest impact.

Betsy Williams,
Brunswick

History column got ‘Yaggers’ wrong

I read with interest the article that appeared in the Friday issue of The Times Record on “A look back at the night Brunswick gangs brawled in the streets.” However, I would like to point out a major error: “Yagger” was never a term applied to Bowdoin students, but was, instead, the term used by the students to refer to those in Brunswick with whom they were engaged in a series of physical conflicts or incidents of mutual intimidation.

“Yagger” is derived from Jȁger — the German word for “huntsman” — and may have referred to a segment of the Brunswick population that worked on log drives and in the sawmills along the Androscoggin. The term was used as far back as the 1820s, when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow referred to Brunswick as “Yaggerheim.” Yagger fights are described between Bowdoin students and “townies” in B.H. Hall’s 1856 book “A Collection of College Words and Customs.”

Contemporary references in The Brunswick Telegraph, The Brunswick Record, The Bath Times and The Lewiston Journal between 1860 and 1915 always identify “yaggers” as men and boys in Brunswick whose animosity towards Bowdoin students was expressed in a number of ways, including verbally and/or physically assaulting students; throwing rotten eggs, fruit, mud, rocks and snowballs; or stealing from student rooms. In The Bowdoin Orient (the student newspaper, first published in 1871), references to “yaggers” are invariably derogatory in tone, and it’s not difficult to imagine that the persistent denigration of “townies” could be seen as a kind of provocation.

I am concerned that since article appeared in the print and online versions of The Times Record that it will live on as part of the accepted history of the town and the college, despite the fact that it describes Bowdoin students as “yaggers” — the exact opposite of all the historical evidence. I hope that this note can help set the record straight.

John R. Cross,
Brunswick