Environmental Writer
Climate Change/Energy / Coastal Issues
by Marina Schauffler · Published September 10, 2023 · Last modified September 12, 2023
Planetary change may now be outpacing both scientific understanding and political will. Abrupt climate change is most evident, ironically, in hindsight. Relying on ice core records, scientists can track the dynamics of past temperatures,...
Climate Change/Energy / Coastal Issues / Economics / Sense of Place / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published January 30, 2022 · Last modified March 30, 2022
Weather disasters inflicted $145 billion in damages in the U.S. last year. The Northeast escaped largely unscathed, but that could change at any moment. More than 40 percent of Americans live in counties hit...
Climate Change/Energy / Coastal Issues / Ecological Values / Sense of Place / Sustainable Practices
by Marina Schauffler · Published September 26, 2021 · Last modified March 30, 2022
Along a stretch of shore I routinely visit, chestnut-gold rockweed and barnacle-encrusted rocks form a natural collage that is quintessential Maine. The sprawling rockweed encompasses two species: willowy manes of knotted wrack and the...
Climate Change/Energy / Coastal Issues
by Marina Schauffler · Published June 6, 2021 · Last modified June 8, 2021
The 1,157 wildfires that occurred in Maine during 2020 included a fire at Baxter State Park that was controlled after 45 acres had burned. Since wind-driven fires tend to be most damaging,wind speeds are...
Climate Change/Energy / Coastal Issues / Economics / Transportation/Travel
by Marina Schauffler · Published September 27, 2020 · Last modified November 9, 2020
We’re in one of the most active hurricane seasons ever recorded, with two months remaining. For only the second time, the 21 preselected names for storms ran out, leaving meteorologists to label the remainder...
Corks. Plugs. Floodgates. The metaphors used to characterize two glaciers at the edge of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) – Thwaites and Pine Island – are tame relative to the scale of these...
Climate Change/Energy / Coastal Issues / Economics / Sustainable Practices / Technology
by Marina Schauffler · Published October 17, 2019
During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hoboken, New Jersey “literally became an island,” recalled its mayor at the time, Dawn Zimmer, during a recent talk she gave in Maine. The city was 80 percent submerged,...
A recent report by the University of Maine Climate Change Institute offers a vivid reminder not to overlook the power of ecological connections. Clear links, like lobster populations responding to warming sea water, are...
