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...
Category: Coastal Issues
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,...
Planning amid Climate Instability
A recent report by the University of Maine Climate Change Institute offers a vivid reminder not to overlook the power of ecological connections. Clear links, like lobster populations responding to warming sea water, are...
Shifting Baselines
“Nature has no hope in the absence of history.” Carl Safina in Shifting Baselines: The Past and the Future of Ocean Fisheries We face a paradoxical bind, needing simultaneously to look backward and...
Greener Boat Storage?
Before long, the recreational boating season will draw to a close and owners will batten down their craft for the winter. Many will choose the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic better known as shrink-wrap. It...
Safeguarding Favorite Places–from Ourselves
Biking Mount Desert Island’s Park Loop Road over Memorial Day weekend, Friends of Acadia Conservation Director Stephanie Clement witnessed vehicular chaos. She has seen a lot in Acadia National Park over two decades but...
No Place Offers an “Escape” from Climate Change
“The man who is often thinking that it is better to be somewhere else than where he is,” Henry David Thoreau wrote, “excommunicates himself.” The same might be said for those who ask, as...
Casting Ballots for the Planet
It’s been a long campaign season, and many of us are ready for a respite from barbed political banter. So let’s take a high-altitude look at what this looming election might mean–for our planet....
