BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 5, 2021
In January, a 908-foot Russian tanker passed through an ice-free Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, several others followed last week. Note that in 2010 the same Arctic waterway was completely frozen November through June. Last year the U.S. alone experienced $95 billion in damages directly linked to anthropogenic climate change, yet former President Donald Trump continued rolling back more than 100 environmental policies. We have been thrust into a scenario beyond what my fellow climate scientists predicted as worst-case as recently as 2015. As the only state to have both our senators in the Bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, we need to hold Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins to the heat. Without consequential national legislation by the U.S., the Paris Agreement will not be worth the paper on which it’s written. 2021 needs to be the year in which America steps up, and it starts with ME. ~ Susana Hancock, Freeport