Stories
By the time today’s teenagers turn 50, New England’s climate will feel very different. Under current warming trends, states like New Hampshire will have shorter winters with less snow. Some coastal areas will be underwater. And it will all be worse without swift action to stop fossil fuel emissions. This possible future is calling more…
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New Bedford’s Marine Commerce Terminal is a huge spread of open concrete jutting into the harbor. On a recent day, a few refrigerated trucks were unloading seafood at a processing plant next door, but the terminal itself just looked like a giant empty parking lot. As the wind swept across the vast space, the biggest action…
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As the planet warms, many areas around the world may become uninhabitable. On the east coast of the United States, especially in population centers like Boston and New York, rising sea levels and increased coastal flooding are likely to force people to move inland to places that are higher, drier and relatively affordable – places…
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President Joe Biden’s energy goals will make significant changes to where New England gets its power. How states choose to embrace these goals as part of their climate change plans could shake up the region’s energy market over the next decade. This week, all eyes are on Biden, who will convene world leaders for an…
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On a recent cool, windy day, a team of scientists aboard a weatherbeaten 55-foot sailboat motored across Cape Cod Bay toward Provincetown, where dozens of North Atlantic right whales had been spotted days earlier. “A bunch of whales were [seen] on a line between the mouth of Barnstable Harbor to Wood End off Provincetown. So…
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Boston University biology professor Pamela Templer is a real-life Lorax. She studies the effects of climate change on trees across New England: from the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts, and in urban areas like the campus at Boston University along Commonwealth Avenue. “I love working with trees,” Templer said.…
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When Janet Buxton, her parents and her 11 siblings moved into a Kensington farmhouse in 1954, the sugar maple out front was already massive. Sixty-seven years later, it’s an institution, a national record-holder, and, as of Monday, now becoming a leafy memory. “I call her the Old Lady,” said Buxton. After surviving centuries of New…
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Conservationists say that every North Atlantic right whale counts, as the population has fallen to around 360. But one entangled right whale found in Cape Cod Bay—named Snow Cone—has triggered an outcry of frustration from fishermen, who say they’re being unfairly blamed for the decline of the critically endangered species. The uproar started with a…
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The Fish and Wildlife Department and a state science advisory panel disagree over how to protect endangered bats in Vermont from a large-scale pesticide spraying program. Bats are not doing well here. They’ve been ravaged for years by a fungal disease known as White-Nose Syndrome, which has killed more than 5 million bats in the…
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