Article Topic: environment

Quebec to New England transmission project could be delayed by rival

Posted July 28th, 2021 & filed under Canada, climate change, energy, environment, forests, Janet Mills, Maine, Maine dispatches, Massachusetts, New England, New Hampshire, Portland Press Herald, Quebec.

Here in Maine one of the most controversial public policy issues of recent years has been over a project to connect the massive hydroelectric dams in northern Quebec with the… Read more »

Conservation groups to sue $600 billion firm over salmon deaths at Maine dams

Posted June 7th, 2021 & filed under energy, environment, fishing, Maine, Maine dispatches, Oceans, Portland Press Herald, US dispatches.

In Saturday’s Portland Press Herald I wrote an update on the ongoing dispute over the future of sea run fish in Maine’s Kennebec River and the survival of endangered Atlantic… Read more »

Four dams, the Kennebec River and the future of US Atlantic salmon in the balance

Posted January 5th, 2021 & filed under Canada, environment, fishing, Maine, Maine dispatches, Portland Press Herald.

While the pandemic has been raging across the world, a high-stakes battle over the future of one of Maine’s largest river systems has been playing out in an obscure federal… Read more »

Maine Climate Council: state meeting near-term targets, but transportation fix a challenge

Posted February 1st, 2020 & filed under climate change, economy, energy, environment, Maine, Maine dispatches, Portland Press Herald.

Under Gov. Janet Mills, Maine has committed to a range of relatively tough climate goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent (vis a vis 1990 levels) by 2030; becoming… Read more »

Bills to protect working waterfronts, tribal women pass US House, sit at Senate

Posted December 12th, 2019 & filed under American Indian Affairs, environment, fishing, Maine, Oceans, Portland Press Herald, US politics.

Some non-impeachment related Washington news. I’ve recently reported on the passage of a couple of bills in the US House that are of particular importance in Maine. They’re broadly regarded… Read more »

Kelp, “forests of the sea,” vanishing from parts of warming Gulf of Maine

Posted November 18th, 2019 & filed under climate change, environment, Maine, Maine dispatches, Mayday, New England, Oceans, Portland Press Herald.

Kelp, a foundation species with a role not unlike that of corals in tropical seas, is vanishing from the coasts of New Hampshire and southern Maine due to the rapid… Read more »

Is Maine’s decades-long lobster boom about to end?

Posted October 29th, 2019 & filed under climate change, environment, fishing, Lobster Coast, Maine, Maine dispatches, Mayday, Oceans, Portland Press Herald.

I recently reported on a new scientific study that suggests Maine’s lobster boom is about to come to an abrupt end, with landings returning to historic levels over the next… Read more »

Can a Maine-based project help farmers worldwide fight climate change by storing more carbon in their soil?

Posted October 9th, 2019 & filed under agriculture, climate change, environment, Maine, Maine dispatches, Portland Press Herald, science stories.

I recently reported on an applied research initiative at Maine’s Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment that has the potential to help save the world. Some 14 percent… Read more »

Maine’s governor wants the state carbon-neutral by 2045. What will that take?

Posted October 3rd, 2019 & filed under climate change, economy, energy, environment, Janet Mills, Maine, Maine dispatches, Maine politics, Portland Press Herald, urban planning, US dispatches.

At the United Nations, Governor Janet Mills pledged to make Maine carbon-neutral by 2045, tasking the new Maine Climate Council to come up with a plan to do so via… Read more »

Maine launches its Climate Council, charged with slashing emissions

Posted September 30th, 2019 & filed under climate change, environment, Janet Mills, Maine, Maine dispatches, Maine politics.

Last Thursday I covered the opening launch event of the Maine Climate Council, the 39-member body charged with coming up with detailed plans to slash Maine’s greenhouse gas emissions by… Read more »

COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.

A native of Maine, he has reported from more than 50 countries and seven continents and lived for more than four years in Eastern Europe during the collapse of the Soviet empire and the transition that followed. A graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago he is past Pew Fellow in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a recipient of the Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Excellence in Public Advocacy.

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