Stories
From his pickup truck, Robbie Irving points to a wide irrigation system providing water to hundreds of acres of plants on the Caribou potato farm that his family has harvested since 1936. Irving’s grandfather started on the system decades ago, and Irving said it’s proved to be vital as temperatures in Aroostook County, Maine, have…
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Wednesday funding for what’s being called a potentially transformational pilot program to help forest landowners in Maine and the rest of New England mitigate climate change. The goal of the program is to remove more carbon from the atmosphere by growing more and better quality wood, verifying the…
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You may have noticed that your most recent electric bill is higher than usual — and if that change hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably coming this fall. These price spikes are occurring across New England, but bills are rising more in some places than others. Some ratepayers in New Hampshire saw the price of electricity double…
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An international seafood rating program has red-listed the American lobster because it poses a threat to the survival of endangered North Atlantic right whales. The designation from Seafood Watch means the group is urging businesses and consumers to avoid buying lobster. Seafood Watch, a program out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, says entanglement in fishing…
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On especially hot days, the temperature in 11-year old Chase Bressette’s second-floor classroom at Pelham Elementary School climbs above 80 degrees. He and his classmates guzzle water and gather in front of a standing fan. His teacher draws the window shades and turns off the lights to cool down the room. But still, Chase says…
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To put it bluntly, it kinda just stopped raining this summer. Parts of the northeast that typically get about 9 inches over June, July and August have gotten a fraction of that. Rivers are running low and many streams have gone dry or become a series of disconnected puddles. Lawns are crunchy, vegetation is shriveling and groundwater levels are…
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Around New England, several states are experiencing severe drought. That includes almost all of Massachusetts. Wells and reservoirs are at all-time lows, so are streams and rivers. The rain earlier this week helped, but it wasn’t enough. In Granby, Massachusetts, at Red Fire Farm some fields are looking worse than others. “We have one field…
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E-bikes are getting more Mainers out of their cars — and could help the state meet its climate goals
It’s 5:15 a.m., and the sky is just starting to lighten in the east as Becki Morin rolls her electric bicycle out of her garage in Falmouth, Maine. Morin lives about six miles from Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she’s a nurse practitioner. She says she used to ride a conventional bike to work…
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When Erica Tharp and her husband bought their home in Framingham four years ago, the lawn needed some work. Tharp looked at the scraggly grass with its dying tree, and decided she wanted something that was less work and more eco-friendly. “That was the goal — minimal maintenance and as least harm as possible,” she said.…
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