Is it hot enough for you?

When we retired, my bride suggested we leave the Midwest and move to her hometown on the Maine Coast. I thought that trading our home in a major city for one on the rockbound coast of Maine was a no-brainer.

We could not afford to buy a waterfront home but soon found a wooded hillside lot about a mile from the coast and started a project.

Our family design committee was responsible for the design of the outside and inside. My part was to agree with the committee's decisions.

After all, I had learned my lesson. I once suggested the paint color and wallpaper design for a family room. My bride smiled and said those were not her first choices. However, she said she would not argue about it. In retrospect, I wish she had. My choices were, in a word, awful.

When we planned our new home project, I wondered if we should install air conditioning. Not needed, she said.

Her family grew up on the banks of the Damariscotta River. She reasoned they had no air conditioning, and we don't need it either. I didn’t challenge her.

In retrospect, I wish I had. In light of the weather of the last few and the coming weeks, it looks like a house full of cool air would be a real plus.

For the record, we did install a whole house fan, and in the evening, at about the third inning of the Red Sox game, the evening air cools down. With a flick of a switch, the big fan kicks in, and a cool breeze invades the house.

No one talked about climate change when we grew up. I was one of those guys who sneered when pointed-headed scientists said we should do something because our planet was warming up. Sure, I said. What is a couple of degrees hotter? What could it matter?

Of course, I said that as I pulled out another cigarette, crushed the second empty pack of the day, and tossed it into the waste basket.

I sneered at similar reports from the big-time scientists from famous universities who claimed smoking caused cancer. And then I buried my parents.

We see reports from all over the globe of unusual heat waves and killer storms. I would love to go back to Yellowstone National Park, but there are massive fires out west, and it makes me wonder if…?

And there is worrisome talk about rolling blackouts to western power grids and shrinking water supplies that once created cities like Las Vegas. Some of these shrinking water sources threaten our food supply.

Despite this, some Washington political figures still sneer at climate change reports as liberal propaganda culled from the pages of “Das Kapital.”

But in the marketplace, coal-fired power plants owned by private businesses are shutting down as major energy firms quietly, and not so quietly, move millions into wind and solar energy.

In between innings of the Red Sox games, we watch ads touting electric cars from Subaru, VW, Mercedes, Ford, and GM. Last week, I saw a GM executive on morning TV say they plan to electrify much of their fleet by 2025.

Not long ago, when you saw a Tesla, you wondered where they would get additional electric power.

Now, if you go to TJ Maxx in the big shopping center in suburban Augusta, you will find a bank of electric car charging stations.

Another EV charging bank sits behind the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. You can even find several around town.

While political leaders and the TV pundits (on both sides) hammer each other for failing to lead the energy sector, private industry is quietly on the move covering their bets by investing their money, and their future in renewable energy. There is even some talk about the revitalization of nuclear power. Change is in the air. My generation won’t be around to see it, but it is on the way.

Once upon a time, Americans made a good living working as caulkers and coopers. Maine and New England saw rivers decorated with huge brick mills that closed or were repurposed.

Here on the coast, our shores once featured fish processing factories, our shipyards turned out huge wooden schooners, and we cut ice from our ponds, stored it in sheds filled with sawdust, and shipped it around the nation and world.

Change is happening.

In the words of Buffalo Springfield: “Something’s happening here. What it is, ain't exactly clear.”