If we were already worried about the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, now it is time to get really worried. On Sept. 24 London-based newspaper The Independent alerted the world that there is evidence that millions of tons of methane are being released into the environment from beneath the Arctic seabed. If that isn’t bad enough, this methane is reported to be 20 times more damaging than CO2.

Scientists on a research vessel have discovered thousands of square miles on the Siberian coast where concentrations of methane are up to 100 times more than background levels. They have seen “methane chimneys” bubbling to the surface. They report there is evidence that these sudden releases of methane in the past have been responsible for rapid climate change and even species extinction.

If this doesn’t leave you breathless, we will all soon be breathless unless some bright person or institution finds a way to use this methane for some type of clean fuel.

My friends and I went to the University of Maine Sept. 18 to hear former Sen. George Mitchell talk about the planetary crisis. He challenged the “elite” students at the university to devote their lives to this challenge. He assured them that they would find happiness in a goal that would benefit the common good. After the lecture, I apologized to a group of students for leaving the world in such a mess for them. “We’ll fix it,” one student assured me. I’m counting on them.

In the meantime, there is work for us to do right here in our community. The Sierra Club of Maine, which put together an initiative called Cool Communities, now has a workshop that can be presented to a neighborhood group, a church group, a club or any gathering where people are interested in trying to figure out how to save money on fuel and to reduce their carbon footprint on the Earth.

These gatherings are designed to provide a place where we can share our ideas and experiences. For each gathering, the Sierra Club will furnish a toolkit that can be passed around to the attendees to be used to perform their own home audit, and then passed on to the next person.

Among other things, the kit includes ingenious devices such as a tool to measure how much heat is being lost from light sockets or doorways, a new type of surge protector to be used to control phantom loads (those red appliance and electronics lights that you see in your house at night after you thought all the lights were turned off), and a kilowatt meter to be used to determine how much electricity is being used by an appliance.

If you would like to learn more about this workshop, contact the Sierra Club of Maine at www.maine.sierraclub.org or call 761-5616.

When I first began writing this column, there was little in the news about climate change. Many people were unsure if global warming was a reality.

Now there is no doubt that the planet is in a serious environmental (as well as a financial) crisis. It is time for all of us to decide to put aside our insignificant differences and work together to solve these grave problems.

Windham resident Sally Breen contributes her perceptions about the state of the planet each month.