Pretty Good Houses are pretty good energy-efficient homes
If you haven’t lived in an energy-efficient home, you don’t know what you’re missing. The benefits that green buildings offer – lower operating costs, healthier indoor air, greater comfort, and the...
View ArticleColleges, and their students, must adapt to a rapidly changing world
Watching a child embark on the college search process can be sobering (and not just in making one feel old!). It sparks reflection on how much higher education has changed, and how much it still needs...
View ArticleDon’t let vampire energy users suck your house dry
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...
View ArticleWake up and smell the coffee trouble
With all due respect to poet William Carlos Williams, so much depends not on a “red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water” but on a steaming mug of coffee. There may be metaphoric value in a garden cart,...
View ArticleNarcissism prevents global solutions to our shared problems
“Let me tell you, the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters.” – Donald Trump, November 2017 The problem with being Trump is the same thing that explains the enormous fame and success of...
View ArticleCars cost you a lot, and they cost the planet a lot, too
Many millennials show little enthusiasm for cars and driving, but for “Gen Z” – those born from 2000 on – the jury is still out. Well, not entirely; one member of that generation – under my own roof –...
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Trees can teach us to value a world of connection
“If you could spend, as I did, the sweeter part of four good years in that forest, scanning a sea of treetops for a twist of smoke, walking beneath that canopy of leaves in the chill clear mornings and...
View ArticleLearning to shed stuff, like losing weight, makes you feel lighter
The bitter winds of January blow in, bringing guilt over seasonal excesses and resolve to show greater restraint. It’s an apt time to consider the advice of a self-described “personal trainer for your...
View ArticleLet’s rein in social media for the most vulnerable – our kids
Christmas came and went, and my youngest child did not get the one gift he most wanted. Despite his disappointment about not yet owning a smartphone, I don’t feel bad – not after reading “iGen: Why...
View ArticleSome tips to help you navigate the renewable energy jungle
Two-thirds of Americans want to “prioritize clean energy sources,” the Pew Research Center reports. But for energy consumers, deciphering the jargon of electricity generation can be disempowering. The...
View ArticleTwo naturalists, one in midcoast Maine, closely observe as the climate changes
“We have only just begun to feel the repercussions of climate change: we are today in a position likely to be envied by future generations.” – Cornelia F. Mutel, “A Sugar Creek Chronicle” The first...
View ArticleMount Desert Island – a small place with some big environmental goals
Mount Desert Island is a long way from the corridors of power, and what’s happening in Augusta and Washington holds scant promise of fostering a healthier environment or economy. So a growing number of...
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Ratepayers weary as CMP falls short in 3 key areas: Reliability, cost, carbon
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...
View ArticleBan by ban and bag by bag, Maine municipalities making a difference
“Just because plastic is disposable doesn’t mean it goes away. After all, where is away? There is no away.” — Jeb Berrier in the documentary “Bag It” It’s easy these days to feel as if environmental...
View ArticleMulch with arborist wood chips, and your garden will thank you
Even before the soil could be worked this spring, I indulged my impulse to dig – shoveling into a pile of wood chips that an arborist delivered last fall. The chips were sodden from snowmelt and did...
View ArticleAppreciating Mother for sharing the gift of wonder
With all its fits and starts – unexpected April snows and fierce Nor’easters, spring has finally sprung. For southerly locales, the March equinox may herald the season’s arrival. But here, at least...
View Article‘Daring Democracy’ says environmental degradation, racial tension, poverty...
“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....
View ArticleField-grown perennials: Don’t be spooked by the esoteric label
Shopping didn’t used to require a glossary. But now there’s a profusion of labels like “pasture butter” and “field-grown perennial” that require translation. Consider the latter term: what portion of...
View ArticleLeaf blowers – a source of pointless pollution and maddening cacophony
It’s a gorgeous summer morning, fragrant with the scents of lilac and abelia, but my office windows are shut. A swarm of leaf blowers has descended just down the road, generating plumes of dust and a...
View ArticleEcology reminds us that we’re all connected
“The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.” — T.C. McLuhan,...
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