The Blue View: Save money and avert disastrous climate change impacts
By Sharon Mullen
Originally published November 17, 2021 in Seacoast Online.
Flooded roads and droughts in the same year. Scorching hot June followed by a soaking wet July. It is the new normal in Hampton. New Hampshire Fish and Game reports that our average temperatures will rise 4-9 degrees Fahrenheit, both summer and winter. This means 10-47 summer days over 90 degrees, and 23-52 fewer days of snowpack. We’ll have more frequent 1-6-month droughts and more extreme precipitation. Little chance of a white Christmas? Lobsters moving to Canada?
2020 had days that were too hot in Spokane and too cold in Texas to generate and deliver electricity. The repercussions were widespread, and felt in our backyard by a delay of over 7 months to receive some patio furniture because the freeze damaged a manufacturing plant in Texas.
Climate change. There are facts, and lots of opinions, about what causes climate change and what to do about it. One fact is that it will change your life. Another is that it will cost you money. Yet another is that you can do something about it.
If you live on the Seacoast, you learn quickly what happens to a sandcastle when the tide comes in. Those tides will continue to flow, but they are going to encroach on our roads, homes, businesses and wells from a higher starting point because the sea level is rising. Compared to the power of the ocean, our infrastructure is like a sandcastle. Based on National Flood Insurance claims, Hampton is the largest repetitive-loss community in the state. Future damage and destruction will be worse.
Hampton is updating its Master Plan to address our needs for the next 29 years. In a recent survey to understand our goals and desires almost 25% of the questions were specifically related to climate change. At issue is how sea-level rise may change land use; how the community should address the threatened roads, including 1A; how we should protect and adapt the recreation and tourism industries centered on the beach; and how the town should help private property owners address hazards from storm surges and groundwater rise. Make your voice heard by completing the Master Plan Update Survey (www.surveymonkey.com/r/7WDMZLK).
You live here. I grew up here, left for 15 years, and just came back. There is nowhere else I want to be, and I bet you feel the same. What can you do to mitigate all this trouble and horror?
Talk to people younger than you who will be here longer, and people older who may have less flexibility. Listen more than you talk.
Tell your local officials and elected representatives what you learn and demand that they take their role in safeguarding the future of our community seriously.
Pay attention to the Master Plan and state and local government. Demand responsible actions based on the best information available. Simply denying the town funds for projects won’t cut it. Balance the value of each project, the need to protect our homes, roads, and drinking water from the sea while taking steps to mitigate climate change itself.
Many local organizations address aspects of climate change’s impact on Hampton and the Seacoast, and help you make your home more resilient. The Hampton Democrats featured speakers from four of the many organizations at their November meeting: Seabrook-Hampton Estuary Alliance, New Hampshire Science and Public Health, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the League of Conservation Voters. You may watch the presentation here. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHMrB6HOXpk)
Save on your utility bill. Energy efficiency helps your pocketbook, and it helps address climate change. New Hampshire Saves (www.nhsaves.com) offers tools, tips, and rebates to be more comfortable and energy-efficient. But hurry before the rebates are gone.
In a real head-scratcher of a move, the new Republican-led legislature pushed to scale back the program. The Public Utilities Commission, staffed with commissioners appointed by the governor, surprised most by deciding to phase it out. The program is funded by all of us “ratepayers” who use electricity or natural gas. The way it works is that we all chip in a little bit to help some be more efficient, which saves everyone in the end.
Utilities like it because selling a little less energy all the time, and a lot less energy sometimes, saves them from having to build very expensive new generators and systems to carry a lot of extra energy during “peaks” that occur only a few times a year. Partly in exchange for monopoly rights, the utilities are expected to provide all the energy we want when we want it, so they have to be ready for those few “peak” days all year long. It is like having a Thanksgiving feast ready to go on the table at a moment’s notice every day of the year.
The energy efficiency program helps families, businesses, even government save on electricity and natural gas by making your home more comfortable, and your business operate better. It saves money for taxpayers when a school switches to LED light bulbs or better cafeteria equipment. It even saves money for those who never take a rebate. Reversing an anticipated expansion of the program may cost 17,500 jobs and $3.5 billion in economic output.
Promoting energy efficiency is a no-brainer, and diminishing the program will cost us all more in the end. That isn’t conservative, if you ask me.
Vote. Know the candidates’ positions, and vote like your future depends on it. It does.
Mitigating climate change and rising sea levels shouldn’t take much of your time unless you want it to. Take some small actions now to prevent calamities down the road, assuming the road isn’t washed out by a storm surge.
Sharon Mullen is a resident of Hampton. She is an energy consultant.