Environment in Working Waterfront

Working Waterfront

Sea sickness of another kind

People often ask me if I am a sailor. I demur, admitting only to owning a boat. I have too much awareness of and respect for real sailors to compare my level of skill. Like many mariners, I get seasick, unless the seas are calm or I am sufficiently infused… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Maine must see bigger picture on utility project

When Australia lit up with wildfires and 105-plus degree temperatures, we could ignore the consequences of global warming—it was half a world away. When California, Oregon, and Washington lit up with record breaking wildfires, air temperatures that reached 120 degrees, and unhealthful drift smoke that reached Maine, the consequences of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A new, old-fashioned way to serve school lunch

Lincoln Academy students who purchase lunch will now eat it out of what are known as “tiffin” containers. Tiffins are reusable stainless-steel lunchboxes that can be washed and sanitized every day which will significantly reduce schools packaging costs as well as plastic waste. Most schools use disposable plastic containers—thousands of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Minke whale skeleton finds second life

Photos by William Trevaskis Students, staff, and visitors to North Haven Community School are greeted by a new, impressive sight when they enter the school grounds: a 26-foot minke whale skeleton, mounted in a spruce timber frame. The display is the culmination of a years-long project, begun in 2016 when… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Maine Climate Council action plan is opportunity, say members

The Maine Climate Council released its four-year plan for climate action on Tuesday, Dec. 1 the same day 60-mph wind gusts were battering the state. As council member Ivan Fernandez remarked during the public release of the report that the five hottest years in Earth’s recorded history were the last… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Downeast cranberries were a bust, too

In a good year, Sugar Hill Farm harvests 50,000 to 80,000 pounds of cranberries. Not surprisingly, 2020 has not been a good year, even for Maine’s drop-in-the-bucket cranberry industry. Too hot. Too cold. Too much rain. Too little rain. Such is farming. [caption id="attachment_22750" align="alignleft" width="199"] Christine Alexander. PHOTO: TOM… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Island Institute awarded energy contract

The Island Institute is one of five organizations in the country to be awarded a contract by the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project, or ETIPP. As a partner in this new U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored initiative, the Island Institute will be awarded $330,000 over three years by the National Renewable… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Phippsburg oyster project is a triple win

PHOTOS by KELLI PARK Maine has the power to draw people with its rugged beauty. But Maine is more than a pretty face, and it casts its spell over entrepreneurs who find possibility in its vast coastline. On the shores of the New Meadows River in Phippsburg is one example.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The smoking gun: what the fossil fuel industry knew (and when it knew it)

The smoking gun on climate change is, well, the smoke. Or at least carbon pollution. But the real smoking gun, said activists from the Center for Climate Integrity and Union of Concerned Scientists, is that the fossil fuel industry knew what impacts carbon pollution would have on the climate. And… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Election gives Maine environmental opportunities

As the Maine Climate Council works out recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (scheduled to go to the governor’s office and the legislature on Dec. 1), and with President-elect Joe Biden’s commitment to reenter the Paris climate accord, Maine conservationists are considering what the election results mean for climate and… SEE MORE