Nearly 5,000 heat and rainfall records have been broken or tied around the U.S. in the last month, including Portland’s record for most consecutive days over 60 degrees. The deadly heat wave, impossible without the buildup of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels, has made part of the Southwest, and places around the world, virtually unlivable for weeks at a time.

Gov. Mills, far right, Maine Community College System President David Daigler, center, and White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi listen to an explanation of how a heat pump operates during a tour of Kennebec Valley Community College’s heat pump workforce training lab in Fairfield on Friday. Maine has reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025 two years early, and now will try to put 175,000 more in place by 2027. Michael Seamans/Morning Sentinel

It is astounding and terrifying to say so, but the planet is hotter now than it has been at any other time in human civilization. Worse than that, no one can tell us where this leads, as the rising temperatures bring weird and extreme weather events that even climate scientists, whose forecasts on the climate crisis have been dead on, can’t say how bad it could get, or how quickly.

But what we do know for sure is that every ounce of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere makes things worse – and every ounce we replace with clean energy will make things better.

That’s the good news. The outcomes get worse the longer we wait, and the more we fight the changes that must take place in our economy. Ultimately, it is up to us to decide how many lives the climate crisis disrupts and destroys.

Also good news? There are many examples right now, even as world temperatures rise, that we are up to the challenge. A few are right here in Maine.

Last week, Gov. Mills announced that Maine had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025 two years early, and now would try to put 175,000 more in place by 2027, using state rebates and federal tax credits to spur changes in home and business heating.

Heating is one of the main drivers of carbon emissions in our state, and it was once thought that shifting people away from heating oil would be impossible in the time necessary. Not so anymore.

Not only does each heat pump reduce emissions by thousands of pounds a year, with lower and less volatile costs, the rising industry also offers good jobs. A program at Kennebec Valley Community College has trained 558 heat pump technicians already.

Also last week, Mills joined other officials, including the White House national climate adviser, in celebrating the restart of work at the former paper mill in Madison, where TimberHP is making wood-fiber insulation, a sustainable building product that could employ as many as 140 Mainers.

That sort of clean-energy investment is happening all over the country, a lot of it spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act, passed a year ago without the support of a single Republican member of Congress. In that year, nearly 80 clean-energy manufacturing projects have been announced, going a long way toward building the domestic supply chain the U.S. needs.

The boom includes factories building batteries, electric vehicles and solar panels throughout the South and Rust Belt, with other companies coming forward to build the components that go into those technologies. The offshore wind power industry is spurring similar investment up and down the East Coast.

With the approval of a far-reaching bill being debated this week in the Legislature, Maine will be in a good position to take advantage of the investment. Not only will offshore wind provide plenty of inexpensive, clean power once built out at scale, it also will create good jobs in Maine.

It is the boom in the clean-energy economy, and in domestic manufacturing overall, that brings President Biden to Maine on Friday, part of a recent tour to showcase his economic policies.

When the clean-energy transition comes up, President Biden should say that Maine puts the lie to everyone who argues it can’t be done.

It can be done. It is being done – thanks to people who fight every day to keep carbon emissions out of our atmosphere, making a better future with each victory.