Mainers from every corner of the state are stepping up to the climate challenge. Practical, creative and trailblazing teachers, bus drivers, students, communities, recent graduates and professional athletes alike are taking action to get ahead of the climate curve. Read their stories.
By the time Randy Martin came back home from teaching at Gambia College in the West African country of The Gambia to purchase his family’s potato farm near Presque Isle in Aroostook County in 1983, he’d learned a few things about preserving soil and the importance of healthy farming practices.
“No potato production here anymore, much to my father’s dismay,” Martin said. “When I came home from Africa my father thought I’d be farming potatoes. Instead, I started planting trees on the potato fields. He thought I was totally out of my mind.”
A Mainer with an entrepreneurial spirit, Cole Ellis, 19, of Searsport, seized the opportunity to forge a green career path for himself at an early age — and he’s not done yet.
“Maine is important to me because I grew up seeing how beautiful the state can be,” he said. “And heat pumps are the most efficient heating source.”
After graduating from Lesley University in 2017 with a degree in environmental science, Jamie Snook, now 29, decided she needed a hands-on job that didn’t feel limiting.
“I didn’t want anyone telling me that I needed to create differently,” she said. “It reminded me that life can be a little bit more grounded in the landscape we’re surrounded by.”
Lucy Robinson a senior at Colby College, is studying environmental policy and history and conducting research among Maine college students about experiencing climate anxiety, a leading topic from the recent report on climate effects in Maine by the Maine Climate Council's Scientific and Technical Subcommittee. Read the full report or its executive summary.
Liza White thought she was going to become a doctor. Born and raised in Rumford, White always loved science and math.
But when she arrived at the University of Maine, Orono in 2017, White quickly discovered that her interests were a better fit for something other than medicine: sustainable biomedical engineering, a field that has been increasingly used to create innovative solutions to climate change.