Finding Fun Without Fossil Fuels

In 2024, when I retired from writing my monthly column for The Maine Sportsman after 10 years, I wrote a final column. Here it is... still fully relevant today. I hope you find it inspiring.

This will be my last column for The Maine Sportsman. I want to thank the publishers and editors for giving me this opportunity and forum. And I’d like to thank the readers who have reached out with kind comments over the years. My first article in October 2013 was under “Southern Maine Report.” I covered various topics in that area for a year or so before shifting to two alternating columns: “Danger in the Outdoors” one month, and “Sporting Environment” the next. I continued both columns until 2018 when I shifted entirely to “Sporting Environment.”

For almost ten years, I have written about environmental issues and ecological topics that are relevant to the people who enjoy outdoor recreation in northern New England. As a scientist and seasoned policy expert, I tried to explore some fairly complicated topics and enlighten our readers so they could better understand how environmental issues affect us all in their everyday lives and favorite outdoor activities. I’ve covered everything from water quality to mercury in fish, invasive species to native dragonflies, eel grass to electric vehicles, ferns to forestry.

Biggest Issue By Far

I have also spent a considerable number of columns discussing why human-caused climate change is the biggest environmental issue we face, by far. The implications of climate change are everywhere and will affect all the plants, animals, rivers, streams and coastal waters for generations to come. The focus of my professional life for 40 years has been on the environment and energy. I’ve tracked very closely the data on fossil fuel consumption and global emissions of carbon dioxide. We’ve seen the evidence and effects of climate change become more apparent every decade. I recall when the 1990s were the warmest decade on record. And then the 2000s were warmer than the 1990s, and the 2010s were warmer still. And now each year in the 2020s have pushed to new extremes, not just in far away places, but here in New England. And we are seeing the consequences close to home.

Primary Cause

We know the primary cause: humans have burned a trillion barrels of oil, hundreds of billions of tons of coal, and many trillions of cubic feet of natural gas has released enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. A trillion barrels of oil is about one-third the size of Lake Erie, and 300 billion tons of coal would be “vastly larger than Mt. Katahdin” (according to AI which helped me with the math). All that natural gas we have burned would fill more than 30 Grand Canyons. By burning all that stuff, we have increased the concentration of CO2 in tiny Earth’s atmosphere by over 30 percent compared to pre-industrial levels. We’ve changed things.

We also know that the primary way to stop the climate from changing further would be to stop producing more CO2 and methane. We need to use less energy and stop burning fossil fuels as fast as possible. Unfortunately, we aren’t making enough progress. We have slowed the rate of increase, but we haven’t actually reduced greenhouse gas emissions globally. In short, we need to stop making the problem worse. Quickly.

The longer it takes, the more the climate will continue to change. If you think the extreme weather events of this winter were bad, wait until we see what happens ten or twenty years from now. I’m not trying to be alarmist, I’m just doing the math. Every gallon of gas or heating oil we can stop burning will matter. Everything we do to reduce greenhouse gases will mean the climate will change less- maybe a tenth of a degree less on average. Or a whole degree less.

Whatever we do today will help the next generation.

Fun Without Fossil Fuels

So that is why, in my final column, I am urging everyone to figure out how to have fun without fossil fuels. It is our responsibility to the next generation to minimize the disruption to our planet’s climate and environment that our children will inherit. Surely, we can enjoy the outdoors by paddling instead of motoring, snowshoeing or skiing instead of snowmobiling, hiking and biking instead of riding an ATV.

Or, we can enjoy travel, boating and motorsports using electric vehicles (powered by the sun and wind, hopefully sooner than later). And think about how much quieter it will be, with no smell of gasoline, leaks, spills or exhaust fumes!

Even with electric vehicles, we should find our fun closer to home, driving fewer miles. We can put up a solar panels, and teach our kids to sail and kayak.

No Excuses

There are plenty of excuses for why this is someone else’s responsibility, or it’s not an urgent problem. “But the Chinese…” “But what about lithium mining…?” “But climate change is cyclical…” Yet, 30% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in two hundred years hasn’t happened before – what humans have done is pretty simple math, and pretty basic science.

I am not looking for an argument. I know I won’t change some people’s minds. But I thought I would close out my time with a request.

Think about the consequences of what you do. And please be part of the solution rather than perpetuating and compounding the problem. I hope you all find plenty of fun without fossil fuels.