BY DARRELL HALEN

Susan Carr is concerned about global warming and climate change.

So she’s doing her part to help bring action at the national and local levels to tackle the problem.

Carr went to the transfer station, a firemen’s breakfast and Dodge’s General Store and asked voters to sign a petition to put a resolution addressing the issue on Dunbarton’s town warrant.

The resolution is expected to be on the March 13 ballot.

Similar to more than 180 warrant articles submitted in towns across New Hampshire, the resolution calls on the president and Congress to address the issue of climate change in two ways: establishing a national program requiring reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while protecting the American economy and creating a major national research initiative to foster rapid development of sustainable energy technologies thereby stimulating new jobs and investment.

The nonbinding resolutions also encourage citizens to work for emission reductions within their town and calls on local officials to establish a committee which would recommend steps to save energy and reduce emissions.

Putting resolutions on town warrants throughout the state is being spearheaded by the Carbon Coalition.

It’s a nonpartisan group of citizens, businesses, scientists, students, communities and organizations who want a national energy policy that protects communities and the environment from global warming caused by carbon pollution.

“I hope it impacts in a huge way,” Carr said of the effort.

Global warming is the gradual increase in temperatures caused by emission of gases that trap the sun’s heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The rise in the Earth’s surface temperature is thought to be responsible for changes in climate patterns.   

Ted Leach, a former state legislator from Hancock who co-chairs the coalition, said members hope to get the presidential candidates talking about the issues of global warming and climate change while they are campaigning in New Hampshire, which is expected to hold the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

The group hopes passage of the resolutions will demonstrate that global warming is an important issue to New Hampshire citizens. They want the candidates to tell voters how they would tackle the problem.

“I want to be part of getting the conversation started,” said Beverly Teach Wiegler, who collected signatures to get the resolution on Goffstown’s town warrant. “This is one small effort that I think can make a big contribution.”

Leach said the coalition’s effort is similar to one done in the early 1980s when nearly 200 communities passed resolutions calling on policy makers to address the problem of acid rain. It helped bring positive change, he said.

“That’s one of the exciting things about the New Hampshire primary,” said Carr. “You can craft a lot of issues that become national.”

Coalition volunteers working in their communities garnered the necessary signatures for this year’s effort by seeking out voters in various places such as Old Home Day celebrations, country stores, transfer stations and in their neighborhoods.

Several said they are doing their part to help tackle what they believe is a very serious problem.

“I figured it was the least I could do,” said Kristine Hanson, who collected signatures in Dunbarton. “Most of us know there’s a problem.”

While volunteers have encountered a few people who are skeptical if global warming is really happening, an overwhelming number of people they encountered are concerned and want the issue tackled.

“The public is way ahead on this,” said Leach, who saw 339 signatures collected in his town in only four hours. “The public wants something done.”