The telephone rang; it was a Chellie Pingree “Congressional Town Meeting” — a regular event with different voters getting the call each night. Just some early campaigning for the incumbent.

A “question” from a fawning young woman in Portland: You’re such a wonderful leader on green issues, how can we bring green jobs to Maine, and how do we move that wonderful climate change legislation (Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade) you passed forward in the Senate?

Eighty percent of Mainers heated with oil, said Pingree and, because of her green legislation, we could be free from that horrible foreign and Gulf oil.

We would have windmills; in fact, we would have green jobs building windmills.

Reality check: The increases in energy costs Pingree voted for will mean that Maine will lose whatever manufacturing there is left; we won’t be building anything. China will.

High-cost and intermittent wind electricity has to be backed up by conventional spinning reserves (burning fossil fuel), and won’t heat our homes or run our cars.

Man-made global warming is speculative; “cap-and-trade” will cost (U.S. Treasury estimate) $1,761 annually per family (more in Maine), result in millions of lost jobs, trillions in costs to the economy, and huge payments to the Chinese, international corporations such as G.E. and Goldman-Sachs, lawyers and consultants. That is, it will be lucrative to Democratic Party contributors.

Didn’t the Maine political class learn anything from Jimmy Carter’s energy schemes (PURPA, cogeneration, conservation) that cost customers of and investors in Maine’s electric companies billions?

David Brooks, Winthrop