You're serious?
This issue has the opportunity to reveal just how isolated and unrealistic are the Global Warming Democrats.
Serious.
The rest of the story:
We have an influx of wealthy young progressives who, by supporting an alternative Waldorf School, an organic food co-op and a block of mostly failing boutiques have also drawn in economically average people with Progressive POVs and a lot of what we call *floaters* (because they seem to *float* a few inches off the ground) from Madison, mostly UW drop outs. Because of them, this town of 4k is now considered a *happening* (sic) place.
The native townspeople are up in arms about the hippies maintaining messy wood piles in their front yards, gardening on the road medians, planting messy sweet corn rows in their front yards and keeping chickens in the back yard, while never seeming to weed anything or dispose of any garden/animal waste, except to let it accumulate in the yard.The newcomers also get hysterical when a neighbor or the town cuts down any tree, uses any additive on the grass or mows with a gas mower.
The town council has punted the issue and after a citizen uprising last summer, all they did was talk about issuing chicken permits and lecturing the offenders on keeping their property neat/habitable.
The air-pollution alarmists evidently moved here to avoid the air in larger urban areas. Some are just natural-born neurotics. The town is on a ridge, but the area is quite hilly and so, many mornings, we have dense fog in the valleys and this means an *air quality alert* is issued by the weather service. They get especially hysterical when there is pollen or mold spores in abundance (Spring/Fall). This affects the susceptible, who then jump on anything that might be *polluting*.
The same newcomers are up in arms about pig farms and the landfilled disposal of scrubbed (limed) fly ash from the coal-fired generating plant about 20 miles from here that _might_ *endanger* organic farms. We just had the second round of severe flooding in ten months that devestated many organic acres and we have many watershed control dams that need repair/replacement, but the concern of the newcomers is a recreational lake behind a dam that leaked and had to be drained. This will take millions, little help from the State or Feds and drain resources away from flood control.
While we have been here for 34 years and have good friends in town, we value our individual privacy, peace and quiet and the independence of our own woodlot, well, river, springs and no building permits or ordinances against *unsightly* building projects on our property. It would take catastrophic illness or advanced age (80s) to make us move into town and then, it would only be for proximity to the hospital.
True Mainers are a pretty independent lot.
Back when Jimmah and cohorts orchestrated the gas crisis in the late 70's, driving up the cost of gas and heating oil, thinking they had us over a barrel ('scuse) - Mainers rolled up their sleeves and relined their old chimney's, cleaned up or put in wood stoves and thumbed their noses at oil heat.
Then there was a vigorous movement by the powers that be to outlaw wood burning because of "pollution."
When the hue and cry against them got to loud, they switched to "ONLY the NEW air-tight stoves can be used" - knowing full well that most folk couldn't afford these new stoves.
That proposal also went down in flames (sorry, the unintended puns just keep coming) - and politicians who pushed them got their heads handed to them.
Since then, they have left us alone...except for the flat-landers who have moved to Maine and then impose their liberal 'from away' zoning laws on their neighbors - like buying land in Maine next to a dairy farm, building their house and then complaining and suing because it 'smells." (Not joking,)