Pointless Pollution, Maddening Noise
It’s a gorgeous summer morning, fragrant with the scents of lilac and abelia, but my office windows are shut. A swarm of leaf blowers has descended just down the road, generating plumes of dust...
Category: Technology
A New Utility Model
There’s a growing gap between what Maine’s ratepayers want and what they’re getting from the state’s dominant electric utility, Central Maine Power (CMP). The wish list is short: reliable power, low cost and low...
A Climate to Thrive
Mount Desert Island is a long way from the corridors of power, and what’s happening in Augusta and Washington holds scant promise of fostering a healthier environment or economy. So a growing number of...
Reining in Social Media
Christmas came and went, and my youngest child did not get the one gift he most wanted. Despite his disappointment about not yet owning a smartphone, I don’t feel bad – not after reading...
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...
A “Shocking” Regression: Sen. George Mitchell Reflects on the Environment and Politics
A “low point for the American environment,” a “dark and difficult time,” a period when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was in “chaos and despair.” Those could be contemporary descriptors, but they portray the...
Succumbing to Screens: Two-dimensional Living
“When our attention is perpetually narrowed onto a small screen, our world shrinks to meet it.” — Nancy Colier, The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World How...
Getting brighter about LED bulbs
“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” biologist Barry Commoner wrote in 1971, proposing that as one of four “laws of ecology.” We’ve had decades to absorb that lesson but it still...
