On Tuesday February 23rd 2010 Moosehead Cedar Log Homes suffered a fire at our manufacturing facility in Greenville Maine.

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Opportunity Maine released our Green Jobs, Green Savings report at a press conference on Wednesday to provide a broad range of examples and context for how different states have pursued comprehensive economic and workforce development strategies in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sector.

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Where do we begin as every day people living in extraordinary times?
For those of us who found hope and solace in the election of President
Obama and a senate majority, we are suddenly standing on our own,
recalling history and Martin Luther King Jr. Yes, we were naïve to
think that change would come easily, if at all; though I prefer to
call us idealistic, optimistic and hopeful.

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Dear Editor:

As this economic crisis deepens at the federal, state, and local level, the demand for critical services is going up while the resources to provide these services are going down. At the same time, nonprofit organizations, which are ground zero for providing services in our community, are struggling to meet the need.

But there is a silver lining: Americans are coming together and are signing up to volunteer and serve at unprecedented rates. Applications for AmeriCorps are already up 208% from last year. Teach For America is expecting 34,000 applicants for 5,000 slots. There is an interest among citizens to serve their communities and be part of the solution. This is a glimmer of hope during these dire economic times, and we should invest in it.

Right now, there is bipartisan legislation going through Congress that would invest in service. The Serve America Act, is sponsored by Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Hatch (R-UT), Mikulski (D-MD), and Enzi (R-WY). This bill expands on the success of AmeriCorps and creates 175,000 new service opportunities, including education, health, poverty, clean energy, and a Veterans Service Corps to provide additional support to returning vets and engage them in service.

We need this legislation now. The way out of this economic crisis is to invest in our citizens - their service, their innovation, and their will to make a difference. I encourage everyone to call Senators Collins and Snowe and ask them to vote YES on the Serve America Act this week.

Representative Alexander Cornell du Houx
15 Page St. Brunswick, ME 04011
acornell@alexcornell.org
www.alexcornell.org

Our representative in Washington, Mike Michaud, D-2nd District, has introduced legislation to fund veterans’ health care in a timely fashion. H.R. 1016 would authorize Congress to approve VA medical care appropriations one year in advance of the start of each fiscal year. An advance appropriation would provide the VA with up to a year to plan how to deliver the most efficient and effective care to an increasing number of veterans with complex medical conditions.

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Harpswell Docks with Lobster fishermen

The impact of the global economic recession on the Maine lobster industry is no secret.

The lack of consumer demand for all luxury items, Maine lobster being the closest to our hearts, has made for devastating financial times for thousands of Maine lobstermen and for many others. These difficulties may not end soon. Therefore, it’s more important than ever for our political and industrial leaders to step forward, to work together and to lead. This economic crisis has served as a wake-up call to all who care deeply about the economic sustainability of Maine and especially our fishing communities. Times like this call for leadership and action. Times like this call for optimism and the recognition of opportunity that change can bring.

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It’s hard to ignore the similarities between the competitions for the Red Sox center field job and the Democratic presidential nomination.

Coco Crisp and Hillary Clinton are solid, battle-tested veterans, capable of stellar performances but with somewhat suspect credentials. Jacoby Ellsbury and Barack Obama are attractive unknowns who have dazzled in their first exposure to the big leagues.

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What does global warming mean for National Security? A report from authors including former CIA Director R. James Woolsey; Jay Gulledge, Ph.D., is the senior scientist and program manager for science and impacts at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and John Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress outlines three case scenarios and their impacts for national security.

Excerpted from the report:

Case 1 - Expected Climate Change

An average global temperature increase of 1.3°C by 2040.

National security implications include: heightened internal and cross-border tensions caused by large-scale migrations; conflict sparked by resource scarcity, particularly in the weak and failing states of Africa; increased disease proliferation, which will have economic consequences; and some geopolitical reordering as nations adjust to shifts in resources and prevalence of disease. Across the board, the ways in which societies react to climate change will refract through underlying social, political, and economic factors.

Case 2 - Severe Climate Change

An average increase in global temperature of 2.6°C by 2040

Massive nonlinear events in the global environment give rise to massive nonlinear societal events. Nations around the world will be overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease. The internal cohesion of nations will be under great stress, including in the United States, both as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and changes in agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world, especially in the Netherlands, the United States, South Asia, and China, has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources, such as the Nile and its tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible. The social consequences range from increased religious fervor to outright chaos. In this scenario, climate change provokes a permanent shift in the relationship of humankind to nature.

Case 3 - The Catastrophic Scenario

Average global temperatures increasing by 5.6°C by 2100

This catastrophic scenario would pose almost inconceivable challenges as human society struggled to adapt. It is by far the most difficult future to visualize without straining credulity. The scenario notes that understanding climate change in light of the other great threat of our age, terrorism, can be illuminating. Although distinct in nature, both threats are linked to energy use in the industrialized world, and, indeed, the solutions to both depend on transforming the world’s energy economy—America’s energy economy in particular. The security community must come to grips with these linkages, because dealing with only one of these threats in isolation is likely to exacerbate the other, while dealing with them together can provide important synergies.

Dr. David Archer:

(Professor in the Department of The Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago)

“Results from the IPCC are summarized clearly, including regional climate projections, but the point is also made and discussed that climate forecasts tend to be in general conservative. In the arenas in which I have some competence to assess, the judgments the authors have made seem measured and fair to me.”

Dr. James Hansen:

Director, NASA/Goddard Institute of Space Studies)

“The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the “El Nino of the century”. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Nino – La Nina cycle.”

Editors note: If the earth climate system were at a peak of solar irradiance and in the warm phase of the natural El Nino – La Nina cycle, this year would have likely broken the record with room to spare. It is now estimated that the Arctic may be ice free as early as the fall of 2013, only 5 years from now.

National Snow and Ice Data Center

NSIDC Senior Scientist Mark Serreze said, “The sea ice cover is in a downward spiral and may have passed the point of no return. As the years go by, we are losing more and more ice in summer, and growing back less and less ice in winter.”

As fourth-generation residents with long family ties to the working forests of the Moosehead Lake region, we urge you to help us protect Moosehead from the inappropriate development proposed by Plum Creek.

Like many other residents we love living here. After all, we have a national treasure in our backyard! This beautiful, forested, lake landscape with the wildlife that lives in it is also our golden goose. We have a wonderful quality of life and the precious gift of a nature-based economy. If we take care of them, our natural resources will provide us with diverse products and tourism opportunities that are self-renewing and low impact to the environment. This is good for us and a good thing for all Mainers.

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