My husband and I recently took a bold step. Despite advancing age and reduced abilities, we took a road trip through the Northwest.
We wanted to visit our son and his partner in Corvallis, Oregon, but did not want to fly. Elliot had never toured the Rockies, though they and the Pacific coast had been my passion throughout my student days. We packed up our gear and our dog Lucy and took off.
It was glorious, thrilling, to see again the snow-capped mountains rise out of the plains which, otherwise, seemed to stretch endlessly. It is a lovely continent. We are a lucky people.
But, you knew I would say it. There were qualifiers to our joy, reminders that things are not as they were or they should be in this gorgeous land. The snowcaps had shrunk, the glaciers receded. And in Glacier National Park we were removed from lovely McDonald Lake Lodge because of smoke from a nearby wildfire. Worse, the very day after we arrived at a friend’s house in the Columbia River Gorge outside Portland, Oregon, she was forced to evacuate her home to escape a massive fire that ultimately crossed onto her land but did not consume her home.
This year more than a million acres burned in Montana and close to three million were consumed by wildfire across the border in British Columbia.
Wildfires are “natural,” usually. Most often they are started by lightning. However, these fires were climate change-related. After years of drought (precipitated by climate change and El Nino) the West had received solid rains this year soaking the ground and filling the streams. However, severe summer heat tormented the region and when we arrived in Glacier Park we experienced temperatures in the 90s.
It was representative of the warming trend we have faced in recent decades. NASA says it succinctly: “The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record occurring since 2001. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year … were the warmest on record for those respective months.”
The heat has contributed to the shrinking of the iconic glaciers in the park and, coupled with dry air, made forests into tinder.
As we traveled, we followed online the catastrophic hurricanes Harvey and Irma as they tore up the Texas coast and much of Florida. But Hurricane Maria did not hit until the day after we returned home. Its terrible winds, huge waves and 20 to 30 inches of rain left people throughout the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico homeless, without electricity, food, water, gasoline, roads or health care. Many friends still have not reached family in Puerto Rico or only recently have made contact. Many more are desperately raising supplies and funds for the relief operation handled so slowly and ineffectually by the Trump administration.
These megastorms, too, are the products of climate change. There always have been hurricanes in the Caribbean. What is different now is that the air and ocean surface have heated and caused increased evaporation, building the size and strength of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Puerto Rico is a poster child for climate injustice — those whose carbon footprint is smallest victimized by the burning of fossil fuels predominantly by the industrialized global North.
We cannot deny it. Climate change is happening now, much faster than previously predicted. It is a problem for us in our lifetime. It will only get worse unless we stop it.
Yet the deniers continue to deny, scorn and mischaracterize a global problem with profound impact whose effects are clearly apparent to those who do not have vested interest in ignoring them. They are blockading attempts to undertake the massive economic conversion away from the burning of fossil fuels that produce the greenhouse gases that cause the warming and climate chaos.
It makes me want to cry out in fear and disgust. Instead I am writing to you.
There is so much to do. A part of that economic conversion is the widespread adoption of solar power. You have a chance now to support the strengthening and expanding of net metering, the state program that compensates solar producers for sending unused electricity back to the grid.
At present in National Grid territory, the only new solar arrays that are eligible for this compensation are small ones (less than 10 to 25 kilowatts depending on local wiring characteristics) because we have reached the net metering cap for larger arrays. This is arresting our ability to expand solar electricity generation in our area.
Furthermore, people who do not own suitable property or cannot afford to erect solar panels must rely on community-shared solar arrays. Inexplicably, in the last legislative session our lawmakers enacted an energy bill that reduced net metering compensation by 40 percent for panels built for low-income consumer buy-in.
There are two bills in the Legislature now that would eliminate or raise the net-metering cap and raise the compensation for community-shared solar arrays that serve low-income households. Call or email your state representative and senator today and ask them to support “An act relative to solar power in environmental justice and urban communities” (S.1831 by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and H.3396 by Rep. Russell Holmes) and “An act relative to solar power and the green economy” (S.1846 by Sen. James Eldridge and H.2706 by Rep. Paul Mark). Ask your legislators as well to urge the chairs of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy to report favorably on the bills.
Since 2007 Massachusetts has increased solar capacity by 300 times. That was done through state policies that must be strengthened as we recognize how quickly the climate crisis is developing.
Don’t scream. Join the movement and act now.
Dr. Marty Nathan lives in Northampton and is a physician at BaystateBrightwood Health Center in Springfield. She is on the steering committee of Climate Action NOW. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.