Falmouth is the latest Maine community to formally take a stand against global warming.

The Town Council voted unanimously this week to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and pledge to reduce emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide at least 7 percent by 2012.

This brings the total of Maine “Cool Communities” to nine: Falmouth, Portland, Yarmouth, Brunswick, Belfast, Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Saco and Biddeford. Each of the towns is moving to conserve energy and reduce emissions, and some are switching to wind power and biodiesel fuel for snowplows.

We wrote about this trend in February as it was just emerging in Maine. Nationally, more than 400 cities and towns around the country have signed the pledge as part of the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities campaign.

The effort started in Falmouth much the way it has in the other towns – small. Claudia King, a concerned resident, helped get the idea rolling. Falmouth High students collected more than 200 signatures on a petition. And Town Councilor Ann Goggin brought it to the council, which also approved $40,000 a year for clean energy projects.

The local Sierra Club's Maine Cool Communities program helped, as did Glen Brand, a local resident and national campaign director of the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities program.

There are at least a half dozen more Maine cities and towns considering the pledge, according to Brand. They are: Freeport, Waterville, Rockland, Bath, Lewiston, Auburn and, perhaps, South Portland.

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