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.

This newspaper not so long ago ran a full-page story about a major environmental issue that had been ignored for years.

“Now this has changed,” we said. “Now it is a question being asked and argued with vigor” in state legislatures, civic groups, industries, scientific forums, journals, newspapers, the courts, the Congress and the office of the President.

The article was about the side effects of chemical pesticides. It appeared in March 1963.

And it used just two words to explain the dramatic shift in public opinion: Rachel Carson.

Now that lunch time’s over, just thought we’d share this list of some of the things collected along the shore of Portland’s Back Cove last Saturday.

About 30 people helped with a cleanup organized by the Back Cove Neighborhood Association, Friends of Casco Bay and Portland Trails. They filled a pickup with junk, and later sent us this partial tally:

Two jackets
Two shoes
23 syringes from the southwest cove (near the soccer fields), 10 syringes from the northwest cove
12 bait containers
50-plus cigarette items (filters, packaging, lighters etc)
1 insulin bottle and gauze
6 plastic six-pack holders
Frisbee, rubber ball, golf tee
A tire
3 diapers
A CD player
A traffic cone
Numerous tampon applicators
Various plastic forks, spoons & knives
A $20 bill (play money – unfortunately)

Now, no one who has taken a close look at a Maine beach would be surprised about the bounty of cigarette butts. (Someone ought to invent something for smokers to put their butts in when they’re done with them. You know, like ... AN ASHTRAY.)

But what’s with all the syringes?

Maine has proven to be fertile ground for green buildings. And experts in the field will be gathering in Portland Thursday to help accelerate the trend.

The Maine Real Estate & Development Association is holding a green design and financing conference Thursday at the University of Southern Maine’s Abromson Community Education Center. The super-efficient building (it even has toilets that use captured rainwater) is itself a showcase of environmentally friendly design.

The keynote speaker will be Kevin Hydes, chairman of the World Green Building Council and former head of the U.S. Green Building Council. Hydes also is an engineer for Stantec, a global design company that has an office in downtown Portland.

Hydes spoke to us today from his office in Montreal about the dramatic changes in construction technology around the world. The pace of change is especially rapid in North America as global warming has captured the public’s attention, he said.

“I really believe we’re moving into the mass implementation era. The message is being heard, it’s being received, and now it’s how to fix things,” he said.

The Green Building Council’s role is to make sure good design ideas coming out of places like Portland, Ore., northern California, and even the University of Southern Maine, get spread around and used elsewhere. Hydes also said he wants to end the myth that green buildings are expensive buildings.

“It’s not green that’s costing you money. It’s new that’s costing you money,” he said. Once new methods are relearned and catch on, the market will respond, he said. “We’re trying to make that new thing become a standard thing.”

Here’s more information about the conference.

A contingent from Maine – led by Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner David Littell – is in Arlington, Va., today to be part of a peaceful revolt against the federal government and the U.S. auto industry.

Littell and Adam Lee, president of the Lee Auto Malls, were expected to testify at a hearing being held by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Also with the delegation is Steve Hinchman, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation in Brunswick. All three were strong advocates of Maine’s law to increase car and truck fuel efficiency as a way to fight global warming emissions.

The agency is considering a waiver to allow Maine and at least 10 other states to push ahead with their own efficiency and emissions standards even though they are more strict than the federal ones. The leader of the rebellion is California, which has established a legal right to adopt air pollution laws as long as it gets EPA approval. And once California sets a new standard, the other states are allowed to follow.

The auto industry is fighting the latest California initiative in court, but the blessing of the EPA is considered an even bigger potential obstacle. The hearing today comes six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the EPA for not regulating greenhouse gases. But some advocates for the stricter standards are now accusing the Bush administration of setting out to stall any added regulation as long as it’s in office.

Here’s a sample of that criticism in a column written by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, both Republicans, and published in The Washington Post on Monday.

Here’s an Associated Press story about the hearing. We’ll have the updated story and comments from the Maine participants in tomorrow’s paper.

If you wanted another reason to stay in Maine, here you go.

Those airline flights to Yellowstone or Disney World are starting to take a toll on the planet, according to a growing chorus of scientific studies. Commercial aviation is becoming a major focus of efforts to understand and combat global climate change.

To fly or not to fly already is a hot topic in Europe. Brits especially are being urged to fly less, although that hasn’t seemed to keep people on the ground.

Queen Elizabeth showed just how sensitive an issue it is when she flew to our side of the Atlantic this month.

Could global warming reverse the steady population drain in northern Maine?

NASA’s new study doesn’t quite make that leap, but it does show Maine becoming a relative haven from extreme heat that may be on its way for the eastern United States.

The study was released last week and says summers in the east, Maine included, may get hotter faster than previously believed. The study generally says the region can expect daily highs about 10 degrees Farenheit warmer by the mid-2080s. The changed forecast has to do with improving the global climate computer models so they account better for dryer conditions, it says.

A map published with the study shows Maine’s summertime highs are generally projected to go from 79 degrees in 1993 to 86 degrees in 2085. That’s roughly the same as summer in New Jersey now.

That’s quite a difference. But, the farther south you go, the more dramatic the change could be.

The average summer highs will probably be around 102 degrees in Jacksonville, 100 degrees in Memphis, 96 degrees in Atlanta, NASA says. Remember, that would be the average highs, not heat waves. In dry summers, daily high temperatures could average between 100 and 110 degrees in cities such as Chicago and Washington and approach 100 in much of the northeast.

Maine, according to the map, could become one of the few places in the eastern half of the U.S. where the average summer temperature in 2085 is not expected to exceed 90 degrees. That could make Washington County a really popular place in August. Might want to get the guest room ready.

Here are the details about the study and, in case you missed it, an Associated Press story about the hot long-term forecast.

Maine may have turned a corner this week in its effort to lead New England in the development of wind power.

First, Gov. John Baldacci decided to create a task force to come up with rules, laws and siting standards for attracting wind energy projects to the right places. And second, the company behind a doomed wind farm plan in the western Maine mountains resuscitated the project by scaling back from two mountain ridges to one and moving a couple miles farther away from the Appalachian Trail.

A state task force seemed inevitable ever since plans for 30 turbines on Redington and Black Nubble mountains were effectively rejected in January by the Land Use Regulation Commission. Opposition to the location of that project, as well as a smaller one in Freedom, left the governor and other wind fans looking for ways to get the state back on track and make potential wind developers feel more welcome.

Lawmakers responded with several of their own proposals to promote wind energy, including one to create statewide siting guidelines. Those bills have effectively been dropped to give the new task force time to do its job.

Baldacci’s move could put the state in front.

It turns out Maine is not alone and states across the country are experiencing the same difficulties attacting windmills. A new report by the National Research Council says that’s because states are inexperienced at wind power planning and regulation and often don’t have standards in place for where, and where not, to build them.

States hoping to break out of the holding pattern, the report says, must provide developers and the public with guidelines for planning and evaluating projects and for weighing the costs and benefits of proposals. The governor’s new task force is supposed to put together those kinds of recommendations by Jan. 15.

The decision to downscale the Redington and Black Nubble wind farm also seemed like an easy call.

The Maine Land Use Regulation Commission was expected to kill the project anyway at its meeting in Bangor June 6. Now, the commission will consider whether to give the developer time to change the plan or tell Maine Mountain Power to start over with a new application. Either way, the project will get new life and an improved prognosis.

It won’t get a free pass. The 18 remaining turbines will still be visible from the Appalachian Trail and could still affect birds and other wildlife. Those kinds of potential trade-offs will come with every wind energy plan.

The Black Nubble project, and two other large wind farm proposals before the Land Use Regulation Commission, are probably too far along to be affected by the new task force. But, in the long run, Baldacci’s new study group could help state agencies, local officials and the rest of us decide whether the trade-offs in each case are worth it.

The decision about whether or not to buy compact fluorescent bulbs may be getting even easier.

The swirly and super-efficient bulbs already save money, reduce dependence on foreign oil and reduce air pollution from power pants, including gases that contribute to global warming. They’re promoted as a simple, first step for anyone who wants to help slow climate change.

But, as we blogged about several weeks back, they also contain mercury, a neurotoxin that can build up in the food chain and end up in our canned tuna or grilled swordfish.

Now the primary makers of the bulbs have pledged to reduce the small amount mercury contained in them. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer and a leading promoter of the bulbs, announced today that manufacturers will cut an average of 360 pounds of mercury from each 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs sold. Here's an Associated Press story about it.

Is your relationship with your car a little strained? Your vehicle gotten a lot more needy lately?

Feeling a little restless, perhaps?

Well, with gasoline back in the neighborhood of $3 a gallon and all the focus on the greenhouse gas coming out of your tailpipe, nobody would blame you. But, what are you gonna do? Walk?

Playing a little catchup. Fasten your seatbelts.

Action’s been heating up in the Legislature with committees trying to get bills out to the House and Senate. Here are just a few updates.

Gov. Baldacci’s plan to reduce power plant global warming pollution 10 percent by 2019 was voted “ought to pass” Tuesday afternoon by the Natural Resources and Utilities and Energy committees. The committees voted a combined 12-9 in favor of a slightly amended version of the bill, according to House Majority Office’s count. If it passes, Maine would join with nine other northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and limit carbon dioxide emissions from large electricity plants.

The vote went mostly along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. Supporters had hoped for more unanimous support, but seem confident the bill will pass.