With gasoline at a little less than $3 per gallon, Maine sends 9 percent of its domestic product to foreign countries. At $120 for a barrel of oil and gas at $4 per gallon, it’s 12 percent. At $150 per barrel for oil and gas at $5 per gallon, it’s 15 percent. The International Energy Agency expects the percentage of domestic product consumed by oil to double by 2030. With energy at 30 percent of Maine’s domestic product, Maine is uninhabitable.

Fortunately, options exist to keep the money in Maine that is now sent away. Many oil dealers have added wood pellets this year, embracing change. Pellets are local, employ Maine people and have a lower carbon footprint than most other options. Brazil has a strong ethanol business, based on sugar beets. So could Maine, which is much closer to supplying major metropolitan areas than current Midwest ethanol producers. There are now only 75,000 acres under cultivation in Aroostook. There were 225,000 acres. This would re-create Aroostook’s agriculture. Duckweed, also plentiful in Maine lakes, is another wonderful source for ethanol. The University of Maine is studying algae’s enormous potential as a clean and local fuel source.

Few resources for electricity exist at the same level as Maine’s offshore wind. We must develop it, as well as wave and tidal power. Maine’s estuaries can benefit from pivoting turbines, swinging as the tide changes, with protective screens for marine life. Bangor’s Hallowell International has a wonderful device that extracts heat or cold from the air. Solar has more potential in Maine than in Oregon, where it is in broader use.

Similarly, geothermal heating provides cost effective heat. Solar hot water is cost effective for hot water or radiant heat.

New approaches make new opportunity. There is wonderful economic potential making or installing wind turbines, solar panels, new solar nanotechnology; algae to fuel; ethanol; platforms for ocean turbines; floating magnetic wave panels, heat extraction, and wood pellets. Making pellet stoves is a natural. How foolish not to harness Maine’s energy potential.

Why are we so addicted to oil?

I’m not a climatologist. I run a shoe business. It made good economic sense to reduce our carbon emissions — and our energy costs — by 20 percent from 2004 to 2008. That is the very modest goal in the Boxer-Kerry climate bill for 2030. Some do not believe in global warming. Those with a scientific background, however, are deeply concerned about climate change.

The predictions call for a sea level rise of at least 39 inches; a change in our forest composition, as temperate trees move north; more intense rain storms, higher temperatures and sporadic drought.

These create a need to increase taxes for larger storm-drains, washout resistant roads and re-built coastal infrastructure — higher bridges, roads, and dikes. Forest fires will increase; crop yields will decrease. Rainy, beachless summers will dampen the tourist industry, and shortened winters will destroy skiing and snowmobiling. The maple syrup industry will move north with the maple’s altered range. Fishing will confront new costs with the changed coastline.

I urge U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to support critically important climate legislation, not only to avoid the worst, but to achieve the best for Maine. The state can and must be energy independent. It can be a leading energy producer and see the standard of living rise for residents. Cap and trade is needed to commit the nation and the state fully to a new economically advantageous course. The option is economic devastation.

It’s a simple process. Emissions of the largest emitters are capped — manufacturers and utilities — and the amount they can use is gradually reduced. If they don’t cut, they buy permits and become less profitable. If they do cut emissions, they sell permits and become more profitable. When businesses are incentivized to do the right thing, good things happen. Because this will also reduce asthma, lung disease, and pollution, Maine Physicians for Social Responsibility also advocate this climate legislation.

My business is one of 112 Maine businesses that support cap and trade. They include paper companies, grocers, banks, ski areas, builders and leather tanners. To benefit Maine’s people, businesses, economy and environment, public support for the Boxer-Kerry climate legislation is vital.

Jim Wellehan is owner and president of Lamey-Wellehan shoe stores. He lives in Auburn. E-mail: [email protected]