Maine in 2040: Can You Imagine It?
Instead of relying solely on models and charts, what if we tried to visualize just how different our lives might be in a climate-altered Maine two decades hence? What follows is an imaginative portrait...
Climate Change/Energy / Health / Housing / Pollution/Waste / Sense of Place / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published September 5, 2019 · Last modified October 3, 2019
Instead of relying solely on models and charts, what if we tried to visualize just how different our lives might be in a climate-altered Maine two decades hence? What follows is an imaginative portrait...
Ecological Values / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published August 22, 2019 · Last modified October 3, 2019
Until this year, June was arguably my favorite month – with its luxuriously long days, beach time, succulent strawberries and delectable snap peas. But this June brought trench warfare, forcing me to combat squadrons...
Climate Change/Energy / Ecological Values / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published July 11, 2019 · Last modified October 3, 2019
“It’s not climate change – it’s everything change.” – Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist and poet, in a 2015 essay Rapid. Far-reaching. Unprecedented. When international scientists wrote last fall in a U.N. report of the...
Climate Change/Energy / Ecological Values / Pollution/Waste / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published June 20, 2019
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...
Sense of Place / Sustainable Practices / Transportation/Travel
by Marina Schauffler · Published June 7, 2019
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...
Climate Change/Energy / Ecological Values / Housing / Sense of Place / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published May 23, 2019 · Last modified May 31, 2019
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...
Housing / Pollution/Waste / Sense of Place / Sustainable Practices / Technology
by Marina Schauffler · Published May 9, 2019 · Last modified May 31, 2019
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...
Climate Change/Energy / Ecological Values / Education/Family
by Marina Schauffler · Published April 25, 2019 · Last modified May 31, 2019
A raw north wind and showers did not keep several hundred students from gathering at the Maine Youth Day of Action rally on Tuesday, standing resolutely outside the Statehouse with handmade signs and voicing...