We all know that the state and nation are beset with problems right now. The COVID pandemic. Labor shortages. Destructive politics. But despite those consuming challenges, we cannot afford to ignore a looming crisis that has been building for a long time and will not easily go away. That is the economic, environmental and health crisis of climate change.

Climate change once seemed, to many of us, a distant and almost theoretical threat. Not so now. It is already lapping at our shores, invading our forests and taking up permanent residence in our weather reports. Eventually, it will affect every business in the state and prove to be the greatest threat to Maine’s economy since mechanization and global markets sped the decline of our rural areas and mills.

But it may also be our best opportunity to grow a more sustainable, fair and vibrant economy for the future.

Last week, a new organization of Maine businesses dedicated to climate action was announced, calling itself ClimateWork Maine. It was welcome news for Maine.

ClimateWork’s goals are both ambitious and practical. They seek to:

• Ensure that every business or business leader that wants to be part of the solution to climate change has a place to connect with others who share their commitment.

• Advance the transition to a new economy where we burn less carbon fuels.

• Foster more business-to-business learning.

• Research and analyze best practices and emerging technologies to help companies adapt and grow.

• Support government policies that make it easier for businesses to take action.

Here’s why this is so important right now. We’re running out of time. For decades, scientists warned us about climate change, and we either pilloried or ignored them. It turned out that most of their dire assessments were too rosy. Average annual U.S. and global temperatures have risen steadily since 1976. And the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost any part of the world’s oceans.

What the scientists didn’t get right was how fast these changes would happen.

Already, Maine’s iconic industries, like farming, fishing and forestry, are seeing unfamiliar and worrying changes, which can only get worse under the stress of rising temperatures, warming waters and invasive migrating species. Added to that are the clear beginnings of a climate refugee wave, accelerated by the pandemic but bound to continue as other areas become hotter and dryer.

All of this makes it abundantly clear that unless we begin to adapt and move in a new direction, we will almost certainly suffer painful disruptions and economic declines in the future.

But change is hard. We want the past and the present to continue as they are into the future. We prefer the safer known to the unsettling unknown. And we tend to ignore advancing threats on the horizon over the immediacy of the moment. But we should heed, now, a warning often attributed to someone who also lived through turbulent times. Benjamin Franklin said, of his time, ‘“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”

The state of Maine has a roadmap for action on climate change, with the state’s climate action plan, Maine Won’t Wait, and its 10-year Maine Economic Strategic Plan. But its ambitious goals will be almost impossible to meet without concerted and determined action by the state’s 147,240 small businesses, and our larger companies working with them.

Taken together, they maintain tens of thousands of buildings across the state, and fleets of automobiles and trucks. Since businesses are constantly changing, they’re more able to redesign buildings, upgrade equipment, update purchasing priorities and make large-scale investments in non-carbon heating and transportation.

If we begin now to build a more climate-friendly, clean-energy and carbon-free economy, generations of Mainers will benefit. According to new federal data, that transition could save as much as $6 billion a year, which we currently spend on heating oil, propane and gasoline. Imagine what we could do if more of that money stayed here.

For ClimateWork to succeed, it should heed another of Franklin’s recommendations. The world is divided into three kinds of people, he said: “those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.” ClimateWork should spend no time on the immovable. It should spend nearly all its time on those who are, in growing numbers, ready to move.