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.
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.
Earlier this year, STS co-chair Susie Arnold, Senior Ocean Scientist and Director of the Center for Climate and Community at the Island Institute, presented about the Science of Hope, and how we can apply the hope theory construct to climate action.
Marissa McMahan can recall the summer that fishing off the coast of her hometown, Georgetown, changed. “It was 2012 and a marine heatwave hit us. All of the sudden we were pulling up lobster traps with black seabass in them.” McMahan grew up fishing on her father’s lobster boat and she had never seen black seabass in the traps before. “Talking to the older fishermen who have a historical record of what they have seen in these waters really indicated how big of a deal this was.”
Meet Edge Venuti, 18, who is taking climate action by serving as the youth representative for the Maine Climate Council's Coastal and Marine Working Group. As a member of Maine Youth for Climate Justice and a student at the University of Maine studying Environmental Science and Ecology, Edge is speaking up to help shape the Maine Climate Action Plan update in 2024.