Charting a Course with Imagination and Optimism
Oct 08, 2024
What’s the heart of Camden? Its geography? Its history? The citizens currently residing here? The ancestors who once trod our paths?
The insects, birds, and mammals? The sea life? The lichens, fungi, mosses, plants, trees and other forest life?
Or the Camden residents who’ll live here ten years’ hence?
We think it’s all of the above. And more.
We’d like to invite you to help create a thriving future Camden, full of heart and care for all living creatures and the resources on which we all depend.
What do you imagine in that Camden?
More folks walking and biking all year round?
A clean harbor? (Free of wastewater effluent.)
Quiet streets? (EVs don’t make much noise.)
Clean air? (Diesel trucks no longer idling while offloading.)
Side streets full of mini-vegetable gardens with sharing tables? (It’s like walking around a farmers market, but it’s everyday, all summer and fall, all around town.)
A harbor-front full of pathways and benches for enjoying the vistas?
A fleet of community boats easily for hire?
Seals returned to the inner harbor?
Seagulls, ospreys, eagles, and terns sharing perches, fishing in the harbor?
Ebikes easily for hire?
Bike paths heading to the state park and the Ragged Mountain Recreation Area, as well as Shirttail, Barrett’s Cove and Laite beaches, and the schools?
Plenty of EV charging stations and parking within blocks of downtown?
Free transport to grocery store and hospital? Ample ride- and car-sharing?
Neighbors knowing neighbors?
Frequent street fairs, art walks, and local-food potlucks?
A fossil-fuel free Camden?
Has the town reduced carbon emissions in homes by utilizing energy coaches and municipal grants for heat pumps and solarization?
Have businesses won prizes for zero emissions?
Are all public buildings not only carbon-neutral, but also producing energy with a vast network of rooftop and other municipal-owned solar panels?
Do Camden’s coffers include a Climate Adaptation Fund so that Camden is prepared when the next 8” rainfall rips out culverts and roads?
Does future Camden improve and amplify the good stuff we already enjoy, while reducing the activities harming our biosphere?
Sound far-fetched? Not really—if we can envision it we can achieve it. It’s up to us—not our town staff, nor our select board—to articulate what we want, join together, and create future Camden.
One thing is sure, if we don’t talk about it and imagine it—and start creating—it won’t happen. Someone else’s vision will evolve and come to life, not ours.
What future Camden do you want to inhabit?
Camden Harbor’s Future—Resilience Planning Meeting October 15
Take your first step at creating Camden’s future by attending the Harbor Resilience Planning Workshop, 10/15/24 at 630 pm at the Camden Public Library. See poster and calendar listing below. Refreshments and child care provided. Tell your neighbors and coworkers, too.
Camden’s Community Action Grant #4—TAKE THE POLL; Join Workshop 11/14/24
Last newsletter, we presented the background on these grants and included a poll—scroll to the bottom—so we could hear from you. It’s another opportunity for you to make a statement about Camden’s future: take the poll, email your ideas (by return on this newsletter), and save 11/14/24 as an evening to talk about this grant. Details to follow.
Local/Pertinent Climate Events and Announcements
10/9/24, Wednesday, 5-7 pm, Tenderwild Farm, 33 Gurney St., Rockport. “Climate, Community, and Farming,” sponsored by Midcoast Climate, Energy, and Green Building Happy Hour. Walk the fields, browse the farm store, and meet other Midcoast Maine residents involved in climate, energy, and building. Farm manager Rory Keohane and co-owner Peter Alsop will talk about climate resiliency strategies at the farm, including rainwater capture, bio-intensive growing, and no-till practices to nurture the farm ecosystem.
10/15/24, Tuesday, at 6:30 pm, at the Camden Public Library, Camden Harbor Resilience Planning, with Peter Slovinsky, Maine State Geologist, Blake Sanborn and Todd Richardson, from Richardson Associates. Food and child-friendly room (with livestream) will be provided. Meeting will also be on video. See more here, and the poster below.
10/24/24, Thursday, community pot-luck. Stay tuned.
Environmental Voter Project: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (currently at Bowdoin, and author of What If We Get It Right?), says 8 million environmental potential voters did not vote in the 2020 election. Read here and take action.
Hurricanes in Camden’s Future
We had over 100 attendees at our Maine Hurricanes: Past, Present, and Future by Dr. Kerry Emanuel. If you missed it, watch it here. Yes, storms are getting more intense (see postscript). Yes, Maine will experience them. And, as we have seen, most of the catastrophic damage is caused by excessive rainfall. (A warmer atmosphere holds more water.)
Food Gardens/Local Food Initiative
We’re cooking up a December panel discussion loosely titled Meadowizing Your Yard and Managing Runoff. Stay tuned.
We’re also hoping to host a potluck later this month (perhaps 10/24/24, save the date). Stay tuned, or better yet, send us your ideas or a note of interest!
Camden’s November Ballot—Carbon Pricing Warrant
This from Cynthia Stancioff:
Camden voters have an opportunity to send a message to Congress encouraging them to enact strong federal carbon-pricing legislation. This article will appear on the November ballot:
“Shall the town of Camden vote to encourage its elected federal lawmakers to enact strong national climate policy in the form of ‘cashback’ carbon pricing, which would charge fossil-fuel producers a carbon fee for every ton of CO2 pollution to be emitted by the burning of their products; such fees to be collected into a national ‘carbon trust fund’ and disbursed regularly to American households with equal per-capita ‘dividend’ checks; with a record of the passage of this article to be sent by the town to Camden’s members of Congress, the President of the United States, and the Governor of ME within 30 days of the vote?”
The carbon-fee-and-dividend policy has been endorsed by thousands of prominent economists, is validated by climate policy models, and is embodied in the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act in Congress. Camden would be adding its voice to those of 29 other Maine communities, including: Appleton, Arrowsic, Arundel, Bangor, Belfast, Belgrade, Brunswick, Cape Elizabeth, Casco, Fairfield, Falmouth, Farmington, Freeport, Gray, Hampden, Harpswell, Kennebunk, Mount Vernon, Orono, Portland, Readfield, Rockland, Saco, South Portland, Starks, Vienna, Vinalhaven, Waterville, and Wilton.
FMI: cynthia.hoeh@gmail.com.
Concluding Thoughts
Our hearts go out to those folks who lost their homes and communities in the path of Helene, and those Floridians—and others—who might be in the path of Milton.
Tragically, these are no longer once-in-a-lifetime events. Intense storms are the consequence of our continued burning of fossil fuels. And they are now much more frequent. And will be until we stop warming our atmosphere.
We can take heart that such devastation hasn’t happened here. Yet. And we can prepare, taking steps at home to reduce consumption, and also acting together, to prepare, as a community, so we can thrive, fossil-fuel free.
Your actions today create tomorrow’s reality.
Start now—speak up for your Camden future.
Postscript
This from today’s Letter from An American / Heather Cox Richardson:
Hurricane Milton spurred meteorologist John Morales to step forward to take a stand, sharing his thoughts after Hurricane Helene hit. “Something’s shifted,” he wrote. “And it’s not just the climate.” He noted that with Helene on the way, “I did what I’ve done during my entire 40 year career—I tried to warn people. Except that the warning was not well received by everyone. A person accused me of being a ‘climate militant,’ a suggestion that I’m embellishing extreme weather threats to drive an agenda. Another simply said that my predictions were ‘an exaggeration.’
“But it wasn’t an exaggeration,” he wrote.
“For decades I had felt in control. Not in control of the weather, of course. But in control of the message that, if my audience was prepared and well informed, I could confidently guide them through any weather threat, and we’d all make it through safely…. But no one can hide from the truth. Extreme weather events, including hurricanes, are becoming more extreme. I must communicate the growing threats from the climate crisis come hell or high water—pun intended.”