SUN JOURNAL • August 15, 2021
Our Maine small business — along with over 40 Maine businesses — recently signed onto a letter thanking Sen. Susan Collins for her decades of leadership protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As we continue to experience the devastating impacts of climate change, and we pivot away from fossil fuels, drilling for oil on the fragile coastal plain would exacerbate the climate and ecological crisis in an area that is already ground zero for climate change. The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. As Sen. Collins so astutely said in 2004: “Although the climate is changing most rapidly in the Arctic, the entire world will be affected.” What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. It comes to Maine’s shores. Unless Congress takes action, another Arctic Refuge lease sale is mandated by the 2017 Tax Act. We urge Sen. Collins to continue leading bi-partisan efforts to protect, as she said, “these treasures for future generations.” ~ Kerry Gallivan, Yarmouth, CEO of Chimani, a Maine-based mobile app company that is one of the leading travel guides for exploring public lands