Young Mainers across the state are starting jobs in municipal government, becoming teachers or working in some capacity for the state. For the sake of their retirement futures, I believe that an agency like MainePERS shouldn’t invest in underperforming market sectors and should divest its remaining fossil fuel holdings.

Instead of talking about oil spills, we began walking across the littered beach, observing broken pieces of fence and stray wooden planks. A group of civilians immediately approached us, noticing our clipboards and hats. They were all homeowners in the area and had a million questions: Who would cover the cost of damages? How can they protect their property in the future? How long until these damages can be fixed? Is there some sort of action plan?

When evaluating AI’s potential benefits for Maine, we must also weigh its severe environmental and public health impacts. Gov. Mills’ AI task force is undertaking important work, and with the gubernatorial election approaching, voters should prioritize candidates who back the task force’s recommendations.

Why should it fall on us, the Maine taxpayers, to pay for the costs of cleaning up a mess that isn’t ours?

That responsibility should lie with the world’s largest fossil fuel entities, which collectively account for a majority of global greenhouse gas emissions. They caused this crisis — and they knew it, too.

On a daily basis, news reports inform us of the impacts of climate change, with floods, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes increasing in intensity, impacting people around the world and threatening the future of our planet.

We have the opportunity on Nov. 7 to replace the state’s two profit-driven, investor-owned utilities with Pine Tree Power, a nonprofit utility owned by us, the consumers, not wealthy shareholders.

Food and the environment have always had intersectional relationships. Our abilities to feed ourselves and meet basic needs is intricately connected to our abilities to support our communities and future generations that will inherit these myriad ways of feeding themselves.

Maine cannot afford to pursue energy projects that do not reflect a holistic understanding of a clean-energy transition and do not center justice as a critical principle.

This is an issue of fairness, equity, and justice. As a coalition of youth fighting for climate justice, we must advocate for a future where the inherent rights of Wabanaki Tribes are respected. We stand in solidarity with the Wabanaki Tribes and urge Governor Mills to support L.D. 1626.

Maine has set important goals to help mitigate impending climate change-related disasters, including reducing our greenhouse-gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. We can meet these goals while strengthening our local economy if we make smart investments at the right pace.

The Build Back Better Act would be the largest investment our country has ever seen in climate solutions, but over the past few months it has seen cuts, delays and negotiations that leave its passage up in the air. As we narrow in on the final few weeks of the process, it is more important than ever that our members of Congress step up to support the historic legislation.

The CMP corridor would clear a path through Canadian and Maine forests, permanently altering what is considered to be one of the largest contiguous tracts of temperate forest in the world.

This corridor violates Indigenous rights, written in a press release to the White House and the prime minister of Canada by Indigenous communities in both countries.

In the wake of the recent IPCC report, I needed something new to hold onto, to fight for. I found that in the budget reconciliation bill.

If we’re going to increasingly rely on electricity for our basic needs in the future, consumer ownership, not investor ownership, is the way to go.

For the good of Maine, to honor our native heritage and to leave a forward looking legacy for the young people of today and tomorrow, it is time for Maine to take charge of our electric grid and control our energy future. Let’s put Mainers first.

As a young person in Maine, I want to see the next generation have access to the natural beauty we have been lucky enough to experience.

Beyond the environmental damage they cause, fossil fuels no longer provide a good bang for the buck.

In a world where much of the land has been developed, Maine’s pristine and untouched forests are a unique gem. The New England Clean Energy Connect project by Central Maine Power, more commonly know as the CMP corridor, threatens to destroy this.

With the” Thirty by Thirty” campaign, to protect 30 percent of lands and waters by 2030, we can protect those habitats that nurture species of all kinds.