At the 2019 Green Party Annual National Meeting in Salem, Massachusetts, Maine resident David Gibson launched his campaign for the U.S. Senate held by Susan Collins.

I feel blessed to have grown up in the great state of Maine. I never realized how lucky I was, until I moved out of state to pursue my career. I grew up hiking our beautiful mountains, swimming in our lakes, ponds and the Saco river, and exploring the woods and fields. But what really makes Maine special, is our community.

In Maine, we share resources with our neighbors and community members. We lend tools, tractors, and a helping hand. We give away surplus tomatoes and zucchini to our neighbors (often whether they want it or not). My wife and I live in a post and beam farmhouse built in 1828. I'd imagine that the entire community helped to build it. In Maine, we have long supported local stores and businesses. Growing up in Fryeburg, Trumbull's Hardware would ask me whether I was charging a purchase to my father's account or to Weston's Farm where I worked. This type of relationship doesn't exist many places, and is one of the things that makes Maine unique. Supporting local businesses builds strong relationships, and it also keeps money circulating in the local economy.

Every year, more than $4 billion dollars leaves the Maine economy to pay for fossil fuel imports. Transitioning to 100% clean energy in Maine will retain these funds in our local economy, circulating between our businesses. This will create thousands of jobs, improve the comfort of our homes, and develop resiliency against future climate disruption.

This can only happen through community cooperation. We must all help each other to make our homes more efficient. Working together, we can help our neighbors to be more comfortable in the cold winter months, and help each other to save on winter heating costs. We will only achieve 100% clean energy by helping every single household, with no one left behind in the fossil fuel era.

For my entire lifetime, Washington DC has been tied up in partisan gridlock. It seems the only two things that the Democrats and Republicans can agree on is giving handouts to their corporate and millionaire donors, and increasing the budget for the military industrial complex. Meanwhile, the working class has been squeezed harder and harder, the national debt has increased by over $20 trillion in my lifetime, and our planet has been exploited to the point of collapse. Our planet, Earth, is the true provider of life, liberty and happiness for all people, all species and ecosystems. We cannot gain life, liberty or happiness by depriving others of the same, whether those others are immigrants seeking a better future, or rainforest species half a planet away.

As Americans, we have lost our moral compass. We will never bomb and shoot our way to world peace. We will never receive salvation through corporate tax handouts. It is time for a new era. It is time to change the broken rules that we've been following blindly. It is time to recognize, with a constitutional amendment, that corporations are NOT people and money is NOT free speech. It is time to reverse the damage that is being done around the globe, and to hold corporations accountable for the destruction that they have caused. Please join me in recalibrating our collective moral compass.

For the last decade, I have committed my life to implementing climate justice solutions. I have transitioned two houses entirely off of fossil fuels, on a working class income. I have taught hundreds of middle and high school students how to reduce their environmental impacts and live sustainably. I have worked with dozens of friends, young and old, to build a better community. Rather than being immobilized by fear, we can work together to implement climate solutions in our homes and neighborhoods.

While we clearly need universal healthcare, we must recognize that we will never be healthy as long as our food is filled with manufactured poisons. Healthy, locally grown, organic food must be provided for every child and family. Done correctly, organic agriculture regenerates soil health. For far too long, we have been misled by a pesticide laden monoculture system that degrades our soil and releases carbon into the atmosphere. Changing our food system will help solve climate change, while preserving topsoil and reducing chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer and obesity. Small, local, organic farms will also rebuild our local communities, improving the economy across Maine and America.

As your Senator, I will work tirelessly to redirect funding from corpora e andouts to­community-based solutions. We can solve the climate crisis by investing in the solutions, while imposing taxes on those corporations and millionaires who are ca using the problems. With your help, I can bring pragmatic solutions to Washington DC.

Please support my campaign at Gibson2020.com. Maine has a lot of special places, and a lot of wonderful people, and it would be an honor to serve you.

Thank you.

David Gibson