by Stephen Mulkey, PhD Avoiding catastrophic climate change will be the organizing principle for humanity for the next 30 years. – Joe Romm, Founder of Climate Progress, 2016 The International Geological Congress is poised to officially designate the present as part of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. I call the 21st century simply The Read More
climate change
Maine’s Attorney General Among 18 AGs Defending EPA’s Clean Power Plan as Federal Appeals Court Hears Polluter Lawsuit Today
NRCM news release Today, outside the federal court building in Portland, Maine Attorney General Janet Mills and health and environmental leaders spoke in support of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which is being challenged in federal courts by a coalition of polluters and their allies. Today at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., Read More
Clean Power Plan Litigation in U.S. Court of Appeals
My remarks at today’s news conference about Clean Power Plan litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals: Right now, judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC are hearing oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by polluters and their allies against the EPA’s historic Clean Power Plan. I am proud to be joined Read More
Approaching the Ecological Event Horizon
by Stephen Mulkey, PhD “If looking into the sun may cause blindness, then human insights into nature entail a terrible price.” – Andrew Glickson, Australian National University, 2014 “If we don’t act soon, there will only be tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet, and this is a disaster for conservation, for climate change, and Read More
Katahdin Woods & Waters, Climate Change, & the Public Trust
by Stephen Mulkey, PhD, for The Natural Resources Council of Maine On Wednesday, 24 August 2016, President Obama designated a large parcel of Maine’s North Woods as the nation’s newest federal parkland. Many environmental groups and environmentally inclined citizens have worked diligently for several years to create the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. These Read More
State’s Warming Waters Create Both Reasons to Change and Opportunities
The success of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative shows we can be green and create good jobs. By George Lapointe and Tom Tietenberg Portland Press Herald op-ed We know that the threat of climate disruption to Maine is real, in part because we are experiencing early warning signs. The science is also clear that the Read More
Puffin Chicks In Gulf Of Maine’s Largest Colony Starve To Death At Record Rate
By Colin Woodard, staff writer Portland Press Herald news story Machias Seal Island, home of the largest puffin colony in the Gulf of Maine, has had the worst breeding season ever recorded, with the vast majority of chicks starving to death in their burrows. The disaster followed a sudden drop in the puffins’ food supply Read More
The Value of Carbon Capture and Sequestration as an Ecosystem Service
by Stephen Mulkey for the Natural Resources Council of Maine. “Carbon dioxide is natural. It is not harmful. It is part of Earth’s lifecycle.” Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) speaking in the House on Earth Day 2009 “Essentially these communities of organisms are our life support system.” Hal Mooney, Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology, Stanford University, Read More
Rising Sea Levels Could Wash Away $3.1B in Maine Property
By Darren Fishell Bangor Daily News news story If sea levels rise six feet by the year 2100 as projected, that would put an estimated $3.1 billion in Maine residential real estate under water. The property site Zillow matched up its proprietary data on current home values with federal projections of how sea level rise Read More
