By STEVE CARTWRIGHT
Staff Writer Sunday, April 15, 2007

enlarge Staff photo by Joe Phelan

Step It Up rally-goers pose with Gov. John Baldacci and a large sign on Saturday afternoon outside the Statehouse in Augusta. The shot was to be put on the Web site of the group organizing it, along with others held across the country yesterday.

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"We accept the challenge," he told an enthusiastic rally of 60 young people -- with a sprinkling of older folk -- gathered under sunny skies at the Statehouse.

"Sometimes the problems are so enormous people just shy away from trying to do anything about it. But you people will cause a ripple," he said. "You all represent our future interest."

Jack Murphy, event organizer and a Bates College student, said "today is about considering and reflecting on what the next steps can be." He presented the Governor with a petition for action signed by 1,500 students, and others.

Baldacci, casually dressed, mingled with student activists from across Maine who participated in a national Step It Up campaign to raise awareness of the threat of global climate change and pressure politicians to do more about it. 'We're in synch," Baldacci said, after the crowd applauded his endorsement of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which involves nine northeastern states in efforts to curb harmful pollution.

Citing the legacy of Senators Edmund Muskie and George Mitchell -- Mainers who won battles in Congress for clean air and water -- Baldacci said, "as you point out, we need to step it up today." He said Maine's goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent over the next year.

That may not be easy, given that carbon dioxide emissions levels in Maine reportedly rose 24 percent from 1990 to 2004. The national Step It Up goal is cutting emissions 80 percent by the year 2050. Without action, scientists predict extreme flooding, extinction of some species and severe drought.

Besides Baldacci, speakers at the two-hour rally included students, two legislators and the head of the Public Utilities Commission. Several students showed up from Kents Hill School, and four Bowdoin College students -- Nick Crawford, Elissa Rodman, Morgan MacLeod and Nat Herz -- rode their bicycles from Brunswick to Augusta for the rally.

Pippa Stanley, 16, of Richmond, said she is proud to be politically active. "I don't feel I could just turn my back on this and be a good person," she said. Meanwhile, her brother, Milo Stanley, 11, added some entertainment by playing his violin along with master fiddler Greg Boardman, plus Isaac Boardman on guitar and Ed Howe on conga drum.

Rebecca Hamilton, 17, of Whitefield, said she is a committed environmentalist. She has worked in Denali National Park in Alaska, and in Chile she collected seeds of endangered palms. On Earth Day 2004, she protested President George Bush's visit to Maine, citing his anti-environmental record.

Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, told the crowd the nation is facing a crisis of energy dependence and the answer has to be energy savings and efficiency. He recalled that 28 years ago, at age 10, he walked 30 miles from the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant in Wiscasset to the State House, to protest use of nuclear energy. The plant has since been closed.

Rep. Jon Hinck, D-Portland, a delegate to the 1997 international convention on climate change in Kyoto, warned that things will get worse if the U.S. -- which refused to sign the Kyoto agreement -- fails to act. Hinck was particularly critical of President Bush, who Hinck said has done virtually nothing on behalf of a better environment.

Worse, Hinck suggested, Bush has met secretly with oil executives to set policy, and even launched a war against Iraq that in Hinck's view is tied to that nation's oil supply.

Kurt Adams, chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, said he didn't want to see the coastal home where he grew up under water in 20 years. He cited Gandhi, who prior to India's independence challenged the British empire by refusing to buy salt for six years. In the seventh year, Gandhi made salt on the beach, as did tens of thousands of his followers. The British arrested 60,000 people, but Gandhi's nonviolent revolt worked.

"It was all about him choosing what to do with his money," Adams said, urging Mainers to think about where they put their money and what effect that has on the environment.

Laura Poppick, a Bates student attending the rally, said students have a lot of energy and can use it for causes such as measures to mitigate global climate change. "We're finally given all this freedom to think and do what we want. Right now, this is the most important issue in the world," she said.

Bates freshman Clara Finley of Pittsburgh, Pa., read a Hopi elders poem that used the metaphor of a river as a call to action, urging people to stop clinging to the riverbank and get in the swim of life. "Gather yourselves," the poem said; "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Steve Cartwright -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

scartwright@centralmaine.com