For the past few weeks we have heard a Northern Bobwhite singing in our neighborhood. This is a bird we associate with Southern New England, so we were surprised to hear it in Eastern Maine. My first thought was, here is yet another bird whose range has moved north in response to climate change, a […]
Before last weekend, the last time I had spent any time on Maine’s Southern beaches was a field trip for a geology class in my first year of college (don’t ask the year). Professor Hussey used the trip to immerse us in the patterns of coastal geology. In early April we spent a couple of […]
In Henry Beston’s eloquent classic of nature writing, The Outermost House, he worried about the decline in birds he was seeing on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. Even in the 1920s when he spent his year on the Beach, humans were adversely impacting birds and other parts of nature. Beston identified a “new” danger: […]
In many faith communities it is common for adherents to sacrifice. The Shakers embraced celibacy, though some might find that a flawed “business plan” for the endurance of the sect. Catholics for years avoided eating meat on Fridays, a practice good for fish mongers. Likewise, many Jews and Muslims forsake pork in their diets. Dietary […]
Mainers are proud of our forest heritage and we often claim to be the “most forested” state in the Union. Those forest lands are best thought of as a mosaic of uses and ownership types. We have industrial forest lands owned by corporations, families, and various investment schemes like Real Estate Investment Trusts. Some lands […]
When most people hear the word economics they think of money. I remember visiting a local Maine historical society and the excitement the caretaker felt when he learned that I was an economist. He immediately assumed that I would want to see their collection of 19th Century currency in circulation in Maine. I did not. […]
It was an honor to give the Geddes Simpson Memorial Lecture at UMaine last week. In the lecture I put forth the proposition that the State of Maine adopt an open firearms season on chickadees under which every holder of a hunting license could shoot an unlimited number of chickadees during the year. After all, the […]
Like many people, I found Governor LePage’s refusal to issue Land For Maine’s Future (LMF) bonds a violation of democratic principles. When I voted on the bonds there was no language saying that I was approving the Governor’s use of the bonds as bargaining chips for issues of importance to him. He had “promised” to […]
