Articles
The End of Oil
Beyond Oil – The View from Hubbert’s Peak By Kenneth S. Deffeyes Hill and Wang, 2005, 202 pp. The End of Oil As recently as a few years ago, you could hold a gallon gasoline in one hand and a gallon of spring water in the other and still believe it was perfectly normal that
The Long View – Working into the Community
The magic spell of summer is quickly broken. For me this happened the other morning driving down the main street of my mainland town when I unconsciously waved at the driver of an oncoming car — two fingers raised above the rim of the steering wheel, island fashion. It was only when the startled faces
Twilight in the Desert
Wishful Thinking and the Price of Oil The relevance to Maine of Twilight in the Desert by Matt Simmons is not just that its stunning conclusions first leapt to the author’s mind on the porch of his Rockport home overlooking Penobscot Bay, but that as residents of a chilly northern state utterly dependent on oil,
The Long View – The Mystery of the Greenland Vikings
Cape Farewell, South Greenland — It is the fifth day of a voyage to southern Greenland, aboard Gary Comer’s 150-foot exploration vessel, TURMOIL. Ever since we arrived, we have been under the influence of a benign high-pressure dome of air with daily temperatures soaring into the mid 70s in cloudless blue marble skies. The barometer
The Long View: A Bond Issue Worth Waiting For
All of us who struggle with family budgets wrestle with difficult borrowing decisions. We are, after all, a nation of debtors. Most of us know it’s a vicious cycle to rely on a strategy of balancing our family budgets by borrowing to pay short-term bills and credit card statements. And most of us also recognize
The Long View – The Past is Prologue
Back in the dim recesses of history – in the early 1990s in this case – Portland undertook a citywide property revaluation that resulted in a secession fever that spread from Peaks to Long to Cliff and Chebeague islands and back to Great Diamond and even Cushings Island before it finally ran its course. When
The Long View – Island Networking
A central paradox of island life is that each island, whether in Maine or elsewhere, eagerly celebrates its differences from every other community, including other island communities, even though all islands share many common issues and interests. Whether these interests are maintaining small schools, or ferry and mail services, or emergency medical systems, the list
The Long View – Small is Beautiful
Maine’s critics have been known to observe that we can be small-minded people. We don’t feel comfortable with big government or big organizations. Town meeting is where we get involved politically, not Augusta or Washington. Invariably when some businessman rides into town with a big idea that’s going to generate millions of new tax dollars
The Long View – Make your voice heard!
The first time someone from Maine visits a harbor in the Canadian Maritimes, there’s always the same epiphany — “Whoa! Take a look at those fishermen’s wharves!” Of course, the Canadian system of government investment and decision-making is vastly different than ours. But still, you cannot help but notice Canada’s large, expensive, well-maintained public wharves
The Long View : Frequent Fliers
A month and a half ago, on Dec. 13, 2004, the new owner of Maine Atlantic Aviation, Roland Lussier, called his chief pilot, Kevin Waters, into his office and announced that the company had surrendered its air carrier certificate and cancelled all further island flight service. Then Lussier abruptly fired Waters, citing the mounting financial