Starting Anew
Last week’s storm decimated the trees in our yard, exposing raw tissue where limbs severed. Branches, graced by buds that will never open, lay scattered on the killing snow. Taking in the scene, I...
Category: Climate Change/Energy
Glacial Melt and Rising Seas
Corks. Plugs. Floodgates. The metaphors used to characterize two glaciers at the edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) – Thwaites and Pine Island – are tame relative to the scale of these...
A Steep Climb: Growing Solar and EV Use
On the road to all-renewable power, Maine is moving like a car near the base of a long, snowy hill. It’s accelerating now, knowing it may lose momentum and traction in the ascent. One...
Displays of Love and Grief
During a 2016 trip along Greenland’s west coast, Maine photographer Peter Ralston took this photo of disappearing ice. Ralston returned from that trip with what he describes as “a burning desire” to share his photos of...
The Face of Clean Energy in Maine
Ascending to his office in Pittsfield, Vaughan Woodruff treads on the same hardwood steps he walked as a third-grader in public school. Now the stately brick building houses several small businesses alongside the solar...
Holding the Heat
Winter’s descent returns us to a primordial quest, trying to hold heat – that eternal escape artist – within our homes. In Maine, nearly two-thirds of households depend on heating oil, more than in...
Buried Treasure: Taking Farm Sustainability to a New Level
“We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot,” Leonardo da Vinci is said to have observed roughly five centuries ago. Sadly, that statement still holds, according to geologist...
Reshaping the Energy Landscape for Resilience
During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hoboken, New Jersey “literally became an island,” recalled its mayor at the time, Dawn Zimmer, during a recent talk she gave in Maine. The city was 80 percent submerged,...
