Stories
It’s a chilly morning in early March. And New England Aquarium scientist Orla O’Brien and her team are preparing a small, twin propeller plane at the New Bedford Regional Airport for takeoff. It’s perfectly clear, ideal for flying and, hopefully, for spotting North Atlantic right whales from about 1,000 feet in the air. It hasn’t…
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Caitlin Cleaver, the director of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area in Phippsburg, Maine, is on a dune looking out over Seawall Beach and the Sprague Marsh behind it. “This is one of the largest undeveloped barrier beaches in Maine,” she says, “and we have a conservation area behind it that is close to 600 acres.”…
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Lobstermen spend most of their professional lives on the water in a solitary pursuit, but once a year, hundreds from the North Shore to the Outer Cape gather to talk shop and to wrestle with the challenges of an uncertain future. The setting for the Massachusetts Lobstermen Association’s (MLA) annual weekend and trade show —…
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Sophia Hammond, 11, has been a Girl Scout for more than half of her life. “I started when I was 5, so around six years, I guess,” she said, sitting at the kitchen table in her Plymouth home. That’s six years of camping trips, community service, and planting trees. And while she’s also busy with…
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In the automotive technology wing of White Mountains Community College in New Hampshire, instructor Troy LaChance and his students lean over the steel frame of a half-built electric car. Two students start to pull a cable, colored bright orange to indicate high-voltage, through the car’s floor. They’re building this car from a kit, designed by…
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Maine forests already absorb about 70% of the state’s annual fossil fuel emissions. Now, a new study shows that Maine’s commercial forest landowners could increase annual carbon storage by at least 20% over the next 60 years while maintaining timber harvest levels. The findings are timely as the demand for carbon offset projects accelerates. The…
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In the small Maine town of Denmark, near the New Hampshire border, some residents are calling for more accountability from bottled water giant Poland Spring. The company extracts water from land it owns in Denmark and then sells it to consumers. The town isn’t compensated for what is withdrawn. And climate change is fueling concerns…
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New England sees record heat in 2022, as nation faces $165 billion in annual climate disaster damage
Five of the six New England states saw record warm temperatures last year – part of a larger regional trend driven by climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said earlier this month Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire recorded their 10th warmest years, with Rhode Island and Massachusetts seeing their fifth and sixth warmest years,…
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What if you could design a house that on a cold day in January would stay at 70 degrees inside — without running the furnace? Or even having a furnace? It’s already being done. In fact, what’s known as the passive house concept came to the United States in 2006, and is being used to…
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Once one of the largest fisheries on the East Coast, Peconic Bay scallops have faced near complete die-offs on Long Island since 2019. A study by Stony Brook University shows this could be a cautionary tale for New England. Christopher Gobler, a co-author and endowed chair of coastal ecology and conservation in the School of…
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