In his June 22 opinion piece, Roy Matthews gets one thing right: Mainers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for the state’s transition to carbon-neutral energy. But that’s the only part he’s right about.

He says that because clean energy won’t stop the storms tomorrow, we shouldn’t bother doing the responsible thing: switching to wind and solar. Instead, he proposes buying the cheapest energy possible. Does he really mean to suggest that because we can’t stop the damage immediately, we should keep causing it?

No reasonable person thinks switching to clean energy today will stop climate change tomorrow. It’s not about us. It’s about our children and grandchildren. We have a chance now to curb the damage and leave something for the next generations. It’s going to be slow, but it’s worth it.

Who’s going to pay, then? There’s a well-funded and responsible party staring us right in the face every time we fill up at the gas pump. ExxonMobil has known, from their own studies going back to the 1970s, that their whole business model was causing climate change. Of course, they covered it up. Today they’re making record profits, while everyday folks get nickel-and-dimed on their utility bills.

Vermont has passed a bipartisan law to charge fossil fuel companies for climate damage. A handful of other states are already considering similar measures. It’s time for Maine to join them and make the fossil fuel companies clean up the mess they’ve made.

Michael Trombley
Windham