This is NHPR’s The Big Question. In this series, we ask you a question about life in New Hampshire, you submit an answer, and your voice may be featured on air or online.
From coastal flooding to warmer, wetter winters, climate change is changing the landscape of life in New Hampshire.
So, for April’s Big Question, we asked: What do you see as New Hampshire’s most pressing climate issue right now?
Here’s what some of you shared.
Barbara - Bradford, NH: The most critical climate issue that I see in New Hampshire right now is that some of our representatives on the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee, seem like they maybe don't believe in the science-based facts surrounding climate change. I've testified in several hearings on climate related bills this year, and I was shocked at the remarks some of our legislators made. It seemed like they believed climate change was a hoax or something.
Wharton - Sandwich, NH: I really think New Hampshire's forests are so unique. And they're also vulnerable to climate change in a number of ways. So, I think that the biggest risk and the biggest worry for me about climate change here is the stability of our forests. They provide thousands of jobs, over $1 billion of revenue every year in the state of New Hampshire for industries associated with lumber and paper and other forest products, and yet they are vulnerable.
Darla - Hollis, NH: I think the most pressing development that we should do for our energy is to continue to look at offshore wind. I believe it has the potential to be a great tool against carbon emissions and climate change. I think that all non-carbon sources of energy should be explored and used, and because diversifying where we're getting our energy is going to help minimize the overall impact on any one resource might have on our environment.
Mark - Sandwich, NH: I have an immense concern that our state is not setting ambitious or even adequate goals for decarbonizing our economy. In fact, we're falling far behind our sister states in New England in meeting the challenge of addressing climate change. So individual states in the U.S. have a mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases by requiring their utilities to source a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. This is called the Renewable Portfolio Standard. We need to encourage our House Representatives and our senators to support climate legislation and approve an ambitious renewable energy standard.
Peter - Concord, NH: For me, the lack of EV car chargers is one of the easiest things to make a difference in climate and simultaneously bring more revenue into the state. When you travel around New England, clearly New Hampshire is far behind our neighboring states. When we hope that visitors from Massachusetts will come up to see our leaves or to go skiing or splash in the lakes in the summertime, so many of these people would travel with an EV or not come to our state knowing that it's too hard to charge. Certainly, it doesn't change the world immediately to have EV chargers to use EV vehicles, but it's the easiest thing that would make a difference.
Robin - Portsmouth, NH: I think the most pressing climate issue right now is too many cars on the road. We need more mass transportation. We don't have a high budget government here. ‘Live free or die’ means less taxes and less funding for things that would, in the long run, help the citizens. I think sometimes we don't look to the big picture of how mass transit would help our state. I think it would help with getting people to ski resorts in the wintertime. I think it would get hikers out if we could have better bus transportation. Other countries do it in the world, why can't we?
Additional responses:
Katherine - North Sandwich, NH: I think the most pressing issue right now is that we are not prepared for the changes that are coming. I think that a lot of people that I know, and that I talk to, want our towns to stay rural and enjoy the natural beauty, and they want things to stay the same into the future. But ever since Asheville had their floods, and Asheville was considered a safe place to be for climate changes, that really opened my eyes to the fact that no place is going to be 100% safe from changes. I know we're losing a lot of our native trees, and that's a concern that's more recent. People still aren't putting climate change at the top of their concerns. We don't have proper disaster education… We don't really know what to do or where to go in the event of a disaster. Food insecurity for me is a concern… So I think there's a lot coming down the pike and we're not getting educated about those changes, even if they're just possibilities.
Tom - Peterborough, NH: I think the most pressing issue at the moment, unfortunately, is that President Donald Trump has made no secret about his willingness to sort of roll back any climate initiatives… pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords… is trying to reduce or eliminate wind power both offshore and onshore. Those are all going to lead, unfortunately, to more increase in, in global warming… So not only are we going to have, unfortunately, more incidents of dramatic weather, but we're also going to have fewer opportunities to actually do something about those. So that's why, in a nutshell, I think Donald Trump is the biggest issue right now facing New Hampshire and the country with respect to climate change.
Kathy - Goffstown, NH: I couldn't find one big issue. I looked at the impact on wildlife, such as moose getting covered in ticks and dying, the fish having reduced habitat due to drought…But for me, on a really personal note, I'm really, really allergic to poison ivy. And poison ivy just loves what climate change has done in New Hampshire…If you've been around in New Hampshire for a long time, you've watched it get more and more from the places it used to be, to just places like along the roads just where people walk.
