Franklin Pierce University students, faculty and members of the public discussed how New Hampshire’s winters are changing — and what can be done to address it — following a screening of the documentary “Remember Winter” on campus Tuesday.
The event was hosted in partnership with Third Act New Hampshire, the Franklin Pierce University Institute for Climate Action and the New Hampshire Citizen’s Climate Lobby. The program opened with filmmaker Gabriel Andrus’ “Remember Winter,” which follows his attempt to cross-country ski from the Canadian border to his hometown of Walpole in February. He was only able to complete about half of the trip before diminishing snowpack forced him to stop.
The film was inspired by pictures Andrus had seen of his grandfather as a child, standing atop giant snowdrifts, which Andrus said aren’t happening anymore.
Following the film, FPU professor Catherine Owen Koning, Climate Action member and FPU senior Connor Doolittle and Citizen’s Climate Lobby’s state coordinator John Gage spoke about their own experiences with vanishing New Hampshire winters.
“That has been my life,” Koning said, of watching the snowtrails Andrus followed disappear. She said skiing conditions have deteriorated in her lifetime. One audience member said he used to have to dig through feet of snow and deep ice for his ice fishing. He has noticed a lack of snow cover and less ice, and less snow for snowmobiling. Another said she had given up skiing after snowmelt led to dangerous ice conditions, which caused her to crash.
Doolittle, a snowboarder, said that changes are noticeable.
“I’ve already noticed a lot less good powder days,” Doolittle said. He said that in his days of fishing in Maine, he had seen a shift in the species, including a recent catch of a black bass, which he said are usually seen further south in warmer waters.
“I’ve never seen that before. Things like that are really concerning,” Doolittle said.
FPU professor Fred Rogers said that it used to be common for the first frost to come on Labor Day, for snow to start in October, and for the majority of winter to have snow on the ground, with more cold days.
“It’s disconcerting,” Rogers said.
Gage called the consumption of fossil fuels an “artificially cheap” option because of the economic damage of climate change that is not reflected in energy prices. He said the average temperature has increased 1.28 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Age, and is continuing to warm at a rate of about .1 degrees every three to four years.
Gage advocated for the United States to adopt a carbon fee and dividend policy, which he said would eventually price out fossil fuels and make investments in cleaner energy sources more appealing. The policy proposal, created by Citizens’ Climate Lobby, would place a fee on fossil fuels at the source (well, mine, or port of entry), charging $15 per ton of CO2 equivalent emissions. The fee would increase each year by $10.
The funds collected from the fees would be collected and returned to American citizens on an equal basis, with adults getting one full share, and children a half share of the fund.
Gage said about two-thirds of households would receive more back in rebates than they would pay in higher fossil fuel costs, with even greater benefits for those who invest in cleaner energy sources. The proposal also calls for a fee placed on goods imported from and exported to countries that don’t have an equivalent price on carbon.
Gage called the policy a “price on pollution.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.