An Uneven Playing Field
Imagine yourself for a moment as a college student, seated around a seminar table with 19 classmates. If that room was on the University of Maine campus in Orono, nine of the students at...
Category: Economics
Leading the Charge
Our family just joined the one percent in Maine: not the wealthy elite, but the select few who own plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicles (EVs). Now we’re wondering how to invite others along. Since...
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...
The Costs of Climate Instability
Flooding, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires: the evidence of climate change is not just mounting, it’s barreling down on us – inexorable as a landslide. The cost of U.S. weather and climate disasters last year hit...
Going Electric
Not all of us can, like the royal couple at their wedding last May, drive a vintage Jaguar modified to be all-electric. Even most Teslas remain beyond reach. Yet while 1 percent of Americans...
Daring Democracy
“Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming rather than being. It can be easily lost, but never is fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle.” — William Hastie, first U.S....
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...
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...
