Articles
When the Climate is Uncertain, Buy Insurance
Last week’s column described how “merchants of doubt” have perfected modern public relations strategies to delay action on the major issues of the day. When scientists seem to disagree on effects of pesticides on the environment, or the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer or the threat of climate change, the resulting uncertainty contributes
Rachel Carson, James Hanson and the Merchants of Doubt
Rachel Carson, who spent many summers on Southport Island, Maine writing about marine life as a scientist and naturalist, was not a biochemist. However, after publishing The Sea Around Us, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and two other books in her ocean trilogy, Under Sea Wind and The Edge of the Sea,
Old Ways Die Hard
Last week thousands of Maine lobstermen kept their boats securely tied to their moorings and didn’t go fishing for a week, hoping to reduce the glut of lobsters in the market that has led to prices as low as anyone can remember for the past 30 years. The great wonder of Maine lobster fishing is
The Great Silent Lobster Tie Up
This morning on Vinalhaven was eerily silent as the sky lightened in the east. No gulls keened, no ravens croaked and no muffled diesels thrummed on their way out of Carver’s Harbor. On the way to the morning ferry, little knots of lobstermen stood on the post office steps, in front of the Odd Fellows
Island Independence Day
The naturalist and occasional amateur weatherman hunched over the animated radar display on the Weather Underground website the morning of the fourth to determine what kind of day he could expect on this rock in the ocean on which he stood. He had only to look toward the gathering gloom on the western horizon to
Climate Change Should Be Outlawed in the Ocean
When most of us look out over the waters of the Gulf of Maine, we tend to see things in two dimensions; the water looks pretty flat and it stretches out toward the horizon. Fishermen, however, make their living in the Gulf of Maine by thinking of the water in three dimensions—they are constantly observing
The Island Reading Group
It was an invitation rich with possibility—the opportunity to meet with the Vinalhaven men’s reading group to discuss the third edition of Islands in Time. And for the first time ever, the men had invited their wives, most of whom are members of the Vinalhaven women’s reading group, for this ground-breaking joint meeting followed by
The Red Phone
The bride had dreamed of exactly this kind of wedding day. The sky would be blue, the leafy trees green and white puffy clouds would be floating overhead, as she and her beloved, with their assembled guests, looked out over the islands of Penobscot Bay. And so it was. Few present could have hoped to
Supporting the Common Good in Rural America
You might not think that Maine has a high profile in the Washington D.C. headquarters of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but that would be because you probably think that the U.S.D.A. only concerns itself with agriculture. During a recent visit to Maine by some of their top brass, however, the broad role U.S.D.A. plays
Jury Rigging the Summer Camp
Maine has the highest percentage of second homes in the country according to new U.S Census figures. Which means that a lot of people spent last weekend opening up camps, cottages and summer homes on Maine’s islands, lakes, ponds, rivers and mountainsides following the long siege of winter. The following is a quick tour of