Twice by phone, twice by email, I have asked Sen. Susan Collins over recent weeks if she would take a stand on the dire predictions regarding global warming. I’ve asked if she would call out the leaders of the Republican Party for their resolute denial that climate change is real and is largely fueled by human activity. If she decided not to take such a stand, I asked that she explain why.
I’ve heard nothing from her.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh has had an abysmal record on climate-change issues (as this paper’s Editorial Board noted in an editorial decrying Collins’ support for him), yet she voted to approve his Supreme Court nomination. Now she is silent on the sidelines as her party’s leaders are recklessly ignorant and/or so devoted to campaign dollars from the fossil fuel industry that they imperil the entire planet.
This is a profile, not of courage, but of someone who only pretends to be courageous and thoughtful in hopes voters will keep believing her carefully constructed fiction. Meanwhile, she keeps serving the big-money interests of Republicans generally.
The vast majority of Mainers want a senator who faces with them the impending climate disaster and has the integrity to take a strong stand on behalf of averting the worst of it. Susan Collins is obviously not that kind of senator.
Robert M. Schaible
Portland
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