Facing a Reckoning
Ironies, like onions, come in layers and can make you cry. As I stared at a graphic showing an outline of Maine symbolically shifting down the East Coast (see bottom figure), I had an...
Category: Sustainable Practices
Caught in a Jam: Facing Overtourism
Traffic congestion at Acadia National Park. Photo courtesy of Friends of Acadia. Overtourism, a new term for a growing global phenomenon, captures how popular destinations can become overrun and degraded, diminishing both visitor...
Taking a Bird’s-eye View
On Mother’s Day, I received a surprise gift. In the peach tree just outside our kitchen, an eastern bluebird and Baltimore oriole alighted simultaneously. It was approaching dusk, and the departing sun lit up...
Dimming the Lights
A boundless dome of darkness overhead – lit only by crystalline stars – is one of Maine’s most imperiled natural assets. The Milky Way visible above Acadia National Park cannot be seen with the...
Reviving the Lost Art of Looking Ahead
The Guy Gannett House in Augusta is a museum now, but I still think of it as the policy percolator it once was, brewing up fresh ideas. In its days as the Maine State...
Maine’s Energy Future
Maine faces a “brand-new day,” Gov. Janet Mills announced in her inaugural address, a time to tackle outstanding work – like limiting the climate change that is “threatening our jobs, damaging our health and...
Sea Change, Indeed
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin It’s hard to muster a celebratory spirit welcoming in this new year. Too many...
Better Serving Students–and the World
“We can teach students what we know, of course, but that doesn’t take them very far now, does it?” – Professor Sha Xin Wei, director of the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, Arizona...
