Many Mainers live along the coast, as do I. In my 75 years visiting, working in, marrying into and living here, I’ve witnessed serious loss of beach and estuary extent owing to rising sea level. It’s slow, and we need photographic evidence over decades to fully appreciate it. We slowly acclimate to real conditions each year, but winter storms now bring the sea right up onto the streets on which we depend, tearing up our homes and commercial structures all along the coast. Historic structures and roads are at times also destroyed.

Meanwhile, “100-year” storms seem to occur every few years, destroying things like our electric transmission infrastructure and some roads. Utilities then apply to the Public Utilities Commission for recovery funds in the form of rate increases for electric transmission, which have tripled in recent years. Localities find themselves in need of more tax revenue to repair and maintain public works in the face of such storms.

Insurance companies make coverage for coastal properties unaffordable. Solar storms bring beautiful displays of aurora, but also disrupt communications through space, as well as power transmission lines on the surface. They have brought down the entire Northeastern power grid at least once within my memory (in 1989).

The point is that Maine may be a largely rural state with a sparse population, tucked away in the nation’s corner near the Canadian Maritimes, but it is nevertheless profoundly affected by Earth and space phenomena. We benefit from a better understanding of all of nature’s phenomena, making the future more predictable and enabling us to adjust our activities to improve the future, or simply to prepare for what we cannot change.

It’s important that we support and defend funding for Earth and space science efforts on the national level. Scientific research benefits Maine not only indirectly through knowledge gained, but also directly through participation by Mainers in research activities and the innovations that flow from them. As a now-retired scientist, I have seen firsthand how federal investments in research drive innovation and create jobs, leading to exceptional progress and prosperity, all based on an improved understanding of the world around us.

The Maine Space Grant Consortium is just one of many ways that Mainers are participating in Earth and space research, all of which will be reduced or curtailed by federal science research cuts
being proposed by the administration and considered by Congress this summer.

How can we promote and underscore our support for science at the national funding level?

We can ask our congressional representatives to resist arbitrary and ill-considered budget cuts that interfere with essential research work being conducted by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, among others. They should be speaking out on the floor of Congress and in public in support of these programs and sponsoring legislation to protect them from those who fail to appreciate their important benefits to Mainers and all Americans, as we face the future together.