Cranberry Isles Join Effort to Help Climate

By BILL TROTTER; OF THE NEWS STAFF

CRANBERRY ISLES – The town comprising five offshore islands last week became the latest to join a nationwide effort by cities and municipalities to help reduce greenhouse gases and minimize the effects of global climate change.

Cranberry Isles, which has a year-round population of about 130 people, officially signed on to the Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement at its annual town meeting earlier this month.

The agreement, a project of the U.S Conference of Mayors, is intended to get participants to either meet or exceed the standards for greenhouse gas production established in the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and went into effect in 2005. More than 175 countries worldwide have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The United States has not.

By signing on to the mayors’ group agreement, Cranberry Isles has pledged by 2012 to help reduce greenhouse gas levels to 7 percent below what they were in 1990. The agreement also calls for states and the federal government to meet the Kyoto standards and to adopt greenhouse gas reduction legislation.

“This is a far-reaching commitment,” Dan Lief, chairman of the local Board of Selectmen, said in a prepared statement. “We will do whatever we can to slow down global warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

According to the Web site of the Mayors Climate Protection Center, Cranberry Isles is the 14th municipality in Maine to pledge to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol goals. Belfast, Montville and Waterville also have signed onto the agreement.

Cranberry Isles voters also agreed to take other steps to help back up that pledge. They voted to authorize selectmen to spend up to $10,000 to support and promote local environmental projects, such as a feasibility study on how the islands could develop local renewable energy resources. Voters also agreed to budget $2,000 so the town could buy its electricity from renewable energy producers in Maine.

Lief said in the statement that the town will encourage local residents to pursue energy-saving measures such as better insulating their homes and using energy-efficient appliances or natural, energy- free resources such as outdoor clothes lines.

“We will also work as a community to deal with hardships resulting from $100-a-barrel oil,” Lief indicated. “Ultimately, the goal will be some degree of energy independence with on-island generation from renewable resources.”

btrotter@bangordailynews.net

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