Maine has unofficially stepped up in the spirit of inclusiveness and environmental leadership to embrace global warming. The unofficial slogan, "Warm is Good" is one that citizens of a cold state would understand. Our summers are jokingly refered to as two weeks of tough sledding, and this makes Mainers enthusiastic supporters of the concept of warming of any kind. 'Local or global, warm is OK with us.

Mainers tend to be hardheaded practical folks who reject the doomsday, Chicken Little, Al Gore "let's all panic and run around scared out of our heads" silliness. We had visits from Eric The Red when he was doing hay farming on Greenland during the middle ages, so our perspective is a bit different. We realize that the Polar Bears survived that period, and will probably manage another warm period just fine.

Actually, some kindhearted Mainers who fear the Polar Bears have forgotten the various swimming strokes, are collecting old skidder tire inner tubes and shipping them to the North Pole area for enviro-recycling. It's felt that the bears wouldn't so much wear them as use them in place of floating ice floes.

Oh horrors! It's one of those terrible SUVs.

In other parts of the country a SUV might be a bit on the excessive side. They do use a lot of gas and Al Gore in his infinite wisdom has linked them to human-caused global warming, but in Maine they come in wicked handy. What other vehicle can get you through winter and mud season with the grace and aplomb of these large vehicles, and what other vehicle can carry your two chain saws, a kayak, two large dogs, assorted children, several necessary tool boxes, food for a week, and still have room for your spouse and his or her gear?

Try fitting all that in your tiny little hybrid electric-mobile.

Actually, the whole SUV human-caused warming effect is called into question by the fact the the planet Mars appears to be warming at the same basic rate as the earth. No one that we can detect from this distance is driving SUVs around on Mars unless those tricky little Martians are somehow leaving invisible carbon footprints.

Ah yes, the carbon footprint, that mysterious bain of all human activity. In this state in the winter footprints are very easy to examine for traces of carbon. I never see any, even after stepping out of my SUV ... with one notable exception.

Occasionally we have to spread wood ashes on the paths to make it easier to walk on icy patches. Wood ashes admittedly have quite a bit of carbon that can stick to boots. I've noticed that if you track carbon into the house on newly cleaned floors there is a clear danger associated with your carbon footprint, and it just might very well be that the ensuing verbal outburst might raise the global temperature a bit.

On a clear subzero winter night with the Northern Lights dancing, and the air seemingly snapping with the cold, you get a picture of the vulnerability of the planet in its intimate proximity to the absolute cold of outer space. It's only a hundred miles away. That's about the distance from Bangor to Portland, and by comfortable SUV, that isn't far.

"Warm" to most Mainers is not a threat. We embrace it. We tolerate the diversity of warmer days than our forefathers endured. We welcome change. We're just that kind of people. "Warm" if it comes will be welcomed and in the spirit of overall niceness, and to further promote domestic tranquility, we will be very careful of that wood-ash carbon footprint.