The Quest for Shade
Maine, it appears, is no longer exempt from the warming patterns that made five of the last seven years the hottest on record. Two summers ago, I wrote about staying cool without air conditioning...
Category: Housing
Wood Chip Mulch: A Boon for Gardeners
Even before the soil could be worked this spring, I indulged my impulse to dig – shoveling into a pile of wood chips that an arborist delivered last fall. The chips were sodden from...
Supporting Renewable Power
Two-thirds of Americans want to “prioritize clean energy sources,” the Pew Research Center reports. But for energy consumers, deciphering the jargon of electricity generation can be disempowering. The federal Department of Energy website used...
Slowing Vampire Energy Loss
Halloween is approaching, bringing a night of ghosts and ghouls – or at least bored teenagers bearing shaving-cream. The phantoms on your doorstep may not be real, but indoors you are likely to encounter...
Choosing Greener Homes
If you haven’t lived in an energy-efficient home, you don’t know what you’re missing. The benefits that green buildings offer – lower operating costs, healthier indoor air, greater comfort, and the satisfaction of a...
Anticipating Climate Refugees
At first, all eyes were on Hurricane Harvey. Then attention turned – momentarily – to the wildfires raging out West before riveting on Hurricane Irma. Cascading natural disasters in a warming world raise the...
The Great Promise of Tiny Homes
“Life started feeling very much like a double-edged sword – to be working so much to pay for a house we don’t own, are never at, and don’t have time to enjoy because all...
Mud Season Solace
I have a bowl of paper whites, Of paper-white narcissus; Their fragrance my whole soul delights, They smell delissus. E.B. White, “Window Ledge in the Atom Age,” 1946 Winter may finally be over,...
