This past Super Bowl weekend the President decided to drop the nomination of Kathryn Hartnett White to head up the Council of Environmental Quality (which oversees all environmental information that reaches the White House). He did so because the votes weren't there.

Mr. Trump dreaded risking defeat in the Senate, but he hadn't minded choosing someone who had no science background, had worked for fossil fuel companies, had called prior climate policy "deluded and illegitimate" and had no knowledge that the ocean traps greenhouse gases which heat the ocean, causing warmer water to expand.

She has said that renewable energy is "parasitic" and that global warming information represents "a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science and that science shouldn't dictate policy in democracies." Mr. Trump supported those claims. It was the votes he was worried about.

To the extent that any of our candidates here in Maine choose to minimize, lie, or even ridicule any and all proven science about climate change, their campaigns should be put on notice—this pattern of deception must be stopped. That goes for our current legislators, as well. There's nothing partisan about the need to respect and accept reality.

Beverly Roxby lives in Belfast