This Year’s Silver Lining
It is the eve of Winter Solstice, the nadir of a harrowing year. Ordinarily, holiday gatherings would buoy our spirits and tide us through this season of brittleness, when hope itself can seem dormant....
Category: Ecological Values
Much to Gain — or Lose
The Maine Climate Council’s 15-month process preparing Maine Won’t Wait: A Four-year Plan for Climate Action was a refreshing affirmation of constructive, nonpartisan policymaking. Roughly 230 working group volunteers and many more citizens weighed...
Making Way for Ducks
As loveable as ducks are, they are – undeniably – fowl, exuberant in start-to-finish mess-making. Domesticated ducks routinely splash into full bowls of food or water, and – if the spirit moves them –...
More Consensus than Controversy
In her Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett sidestepped questions about climate change, saying it was a “very contentious matter of public debate.” As a matter of...
Crises Demand Plans
The coronavirus tragedy in the U.S. holds a potent lesson about governance: Facing crises without a strategic plan costs lives. The floundering on display in recent months – with conflicting federal guidance, states forced...
Ending Use of Chemical Weapons for Crowd Control
Braxton Winston, an at-large member of the Charlotte, N.C., City Council, vividly recalls his first encounter with tear gas at a peaceful protest four years ago. “Struggling to breathe. Skin burning. Vomiting. Trying to...
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...
Emerald Ash Borer: A Slow-Motion Natural Disaster
Maine communities stand to lose a lot with the arrival of emerald ash borer (EAB), an Asian parasite that attacks white, green and brown ash (Fraxinus spp.) — killing most trees within a few...
