Last week we honored those whose lives were lost on 9/11. Today let us remember we spent two trillion dollars on wars that in the end, we lost (again).
Today we also read about spending money to preserve the old gasholder building that represents the dawn of hydrocarbons and perhaps the twilight of civilization.
Meanwhile, a forest area that absorbs carbon emitted from burning hydrocarbons is slated for development into one more faceless asphalt expanse. And to help make it possible the city is evicting homeless people encamped there who are (still) waiting for affordable housing. If humanity keeps emitting carbon as it is inclined to do, in just a century, we shall all be homeless (planet-less!) with nothing to fight for.
Concord, why not have the city (citizens of New Hampshire) buy the forested encampment land and build a minimal impact green community that teaches and employs the people encamped there to practice agroforestry and to build and maintain a network of riverside trails and parks along the Merrimack that all can enjoy? Surely there must be a means to design a gradual phasing in of respectable green habitat for the people there as their temporary encampment is phased out.
Or perhaps the gasholder building itself can be turned into affordable housing? It looks to be of a size that could readily yield a dozen architecturally awesome abodes. No can do because it’s a “historic place?”
Citizens, just say no to statues representing the glory days of carbon, and indeed, what better way to honor the past than to preserve the façade while rebuilding from the inside out? How about our very own college students are tasked to create an equitable green solution for all that can be a model for the nation and the world? Bring on the power of young minds to evolve the ways of the old.
How to pay for all this? New Hampshire can also lead the world with a “Greenhouse Gas Emissions Fee” that is imposed on the sale of all hydrocarbons in the state, and because it’s a “fee” and not a “tax” it must be spent on directly addressing global climate change by, for example, preserving carbon absorbing forests and wetlands and covering brownfield sites with solar panels.
In 2019, 724 million gallons of gasoline were sold in New Hampshire. Put up a sign at every gas station that a GEF of five cents a gallon is added which will yield $36 million a year, every penny of which will and must be spent directly on helping to keep and make New Hampshire even more green as we team up to combat global warming. I predict the movement will spread like wildfires in the west that are headed our way.
It’s time to bring real meaning to the gasholder project with a green light on helping our forests and people to grow together.
(Alexander Slocum lives in Bow.)