FARMINGTON – At the Maine Lakes Conference on Saturday, a four-member panel spoke mostly of political polarization, and the need for courage and support in moving forward with environmental issues.
The conference was put on by Maine Congress of Lake Associations, a nonprofit organization that is intended to protect and preserve Maine lakes and ponds, and was held at the University of Maine at Farmington.
Brownie Carson, the executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, opened the discussion with a strong statement about the importance of politics in the environmental fight.
“As we face a really astounding array of challenges on the environmental front, I would like to offer the thought that on the most part, we know how to deal with them,” Carson said. “Technology has not failed this era. What is at risk of causing us to fail, and together we have to assure that we don’t, is really a lack of political will.”
Carson’s sentiments were echoed by his three fellow panelists, starting with David Littell, the deputy director of the Department of Environmental Protection, who said he had noticed clear changes in the politics of Maine over the past few years.
“In my view, in the last two and half years we have seen a marked change in politics, and not necessarily for a good thing.”
Littell cited growing political polarization, negative agendas and attacks on opposing viewpoints without any clear alternatives in place as some of the main reasons for the changing political arena.
Ted Koffman, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee in the Maine Legislature, also spoke of political polarization, saying that he now spends far more of his time than he used to attempting to kill bills that he believes are deceptive and often harmful to the environment.
“I’ve been seeing more politicization of the environmental policy and the environmental management,” Koffman said.
The final panelist to speak was Alan Caron, president of GrowSmart Maine, who spoke to the maturation of the environmental movement, and the need to focus on the larger issues, and to accept the changing face of Maine, particularly in regards to population and sprawl.
“We tend to think of sprawl as a southern and coastal problem,” Caron said. “It is not.”
Each panelist spent about 15 minutes addressing the audience. The conference, which lasted seven and a half hours, featured several similar discussions of environmental issues, and concerns regarding Maine lakes and ponds.
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