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: Sustainable Practices
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...
Driving Seemed Inescapable until It Wasn’t
Ask experts about cutting vehicular emissions — the largest source of Maine’s greenhouse gas pollution — and you’re apt to hear how complex the task is. Finding ways to equitably transition from gas-powered to...
Cottage Industry
A single small home, lifted onto a foundation in Milbridge last month, could signal big housing changes ahead. Confronted with scant affordable housing and mandates to reduce carbon pollution, Maine needs to re-envision how...
Droughts and Downpours
“Never again will we have the climate system of the 20th century.” — Ivan Fernandez, University of Maine soil scientist and co-chair of the Maine Climate Council’s Scientific and Technical Subcommittee On a...
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...
