The Chilmark selectmen have taken steps to form an Islandwide sustainable energy committee.

At the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday, Robert Hanneman, a professor at Tufts University, noted budding efforts in Tisbury, Edgartown and Oak Bluffs to form similar committees. He also noted new scientific information that projects a much faster level of sea level rise than previously anticipated, and stressed the need for long-term planning and preparation.

Early this year, on the heels of the Paris climate deal, Mr. Hanneman proposed a Chilmark sustainable energy committee “to advance energy savings and efficiency and accelerate the adoption of renewable energy sources” with a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. He envisioned the committee working with other Island towns and local organizations.

The selectmen this week welcomed the effort, but said they favored an Islandwide approach. Mr. Hanneman said he had started out with the same idea, but soon discovered the absence of a regional support network. Selectmen suggested writing to other towns to float the idea of an all-Island committee.

“I would like to see it get going, but let’s take one stab at getting some sort of regional committee instead of just the town,” selectman Bill Rossi said. They plan to revisit the issue in two weeks.

The board also discussed plans by Eversource Energy to remove hundreds of trees along Island roads, including South, North and Middle roads in Chilmark. Selectman Warren Doty was one of many residents who had received notification from the company that certain trees would need to come down. But he questioned the company’s assertion that the marked trees were mostly oaks affected by gall wasps. Only four of the 12 trees marked on his property were oaks, he said.

Selectman Jim Malkin recalled speaking with a worker who was marking the trees with blue ribbon. “My concern was that he was a bit overzealous,” Mr. Malkin said. “A lot of the things he was banding, in my uneducated opinion, were not [affected by wasps], were not oak, were not near wires . . . . It’s pretty wholesale.” Others in town have also complained about the extent of the tagging.

Official notices went out to property owners around the Island in May. Eversource said it planned to contact town tree wardens in July and would begin removing the trees as early as the fall. The project area also includes South Road in Aquinnah and West Tisbury, State Road in Vineyard Haven and Old County and Edgartown Vineyard Haven Roads, also in West Tisbury.