Talking with CBC-Nova Scotia about the 400-year backstory to the 2020 election

The rest of the world is trying to understand what's going on with the United States and its (currently not quite resolved) election. 

So I very much enjoyed sharing the backstory (via the American Nations - American Character - Union trilogy) with CBC-Nova Scotia this morning for their longform Mainstreet program. It broadcast today, but can also be heard as a podcast here.

Last week I spoke with CBC-New Brunswick  (about Maine's role) and Denmark's Zetland Magasin about the grand American backstory.

Hope you're all getting more sleep than I am. But if you live in the United States, I very much doubt it.

Scientists say Atlantic right whales on trajectory to be extinct in 23 years

The North Atlantic right whale, the world's second most endangered mammal after the species' Pacific cousin, has has a disastrous year here in the northwest Atlantic. Sixteen of the whales have been found dead since June in New England and Atlantic Canada, more than three percent of the total worldwide population of 450.

Scientists who study the whales met in Halifax this past weekend and warn that the animals will be extinct in just 23 years if present trends continue. They have recommendations as to what should be done and say it should be done now, not after further study. And you can read all about it in my story in yesterday's Portland Press Herald.

I reported earlier this summer for the Press Herald about the right whale die off, with some additional background about the species and how its been monitored. I've reported on the species on and off for nearly a decade for other publications, context you can find by starting here.

A final housekeeping note: for those following President Trump's voter fraud commission, I had this update, wherein Maine's member blasts the group's secrecy and evokes the law to demand he be kept in the loop on its activities.

Gulf of Maine warming concentrated in summer, which is getting longer

I've been remiss in posting that in this past week's Maine Sunday Telegram I reported on new scientific research that reveals a new level of detail of how the Gulf of Maine is warming.

As discussed in detail in my 2015 series on the warming of the Gulf, the body of water is the second fastest warming part of the world ocean, with plenty of implications for life here, marine and human alike.

The new research -- by a team including many of the same scientists who worked on the previous studies -- shows Gulf summers are getting longer by two days a year, and that almost all the annual warming is concentrated in the summer months meaning, among other things, less of a cold-water "speed bump" is present to protect the Maine coast from hurricanes.

The AP followed up on this story later in the week.

In recent weeks, right whales have been dying in large numbers in the northeast Atlantic -- possibly due in part to secondary climate effects -- and researchers have estimated that many commercial fish species in the Gulf may run out of thermally appropriate habitat in coming decades.

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist

I was surprised, honored, and elated to learn that a series I wrote for the Portland Press Herald was named a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

The six part series, "Mayday," was about climate change and the Gulf of Maine and appeared in the paper in late October, with the brilliant photographic work of my Press Herald colleague Greg Rec. Here's the paper's own write up.

The prize, also announced at 3pm Eastern yesterday, went to T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Ken Armstrong of the Marshall Project for a series on police failures in investigating rape. The other finalists were a reporting team from the Wall Street Journal who exposed how pharmaceutic companies relentlessly raise drug prices.

I'm especially pleased that this recognition came for a series on the oceans and climate, a beat I covered relentlessly in the 1990s and early aughts while a foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Chronicle of Higher Education. My first two books -- Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas and The Lobster Coast -- were fully and partially about these issues respectively, one with chapters from Antarctica, Belize, the Marshall Islands, Black Sea and beyond, the other focusing on the Gulf of Maine. I came away from it feeling like readers just weren't that interested, so having "Mayday" honored is especially meaningful.

Thanks to all my colleagues at the Press Herald, the second smallest daily newspaper honored in yesterday's announcements, and especially to my editors there, Cliff Schechtman and Steve Greenlee, designers Brian Robitaille and Karen Beaudoin, cartographer Michael Fisher, and the previously mentioned Greg Rec, photographer extraordinaire. (It's not easy being a small regional paper these days, but we're been doing something right.) And thank you to the Pulitzer judges for this tremendous honor.

Canada approves oil exploration next to Georges Bank, entrance to Gulf of Maine

Canadian officials have granted Statoil an oil and gas exploration lease for a parcel immediately bordering on the Georges Bank exclusion zone and located at the mouth of the Northeast Channel, the primary oceanographic intake point for the Gulf of Maine.

As I reported in yesterday's Portland Press Herald, in a related development Shell Canada has begun actual drilling in its leases just to the east. BP Canada, which holds a lease for the next set of parcels, has applied to begin its own drilling.

For more background on the Gulf of Maine, its currents, and environmental challenges, consider reading the first part of "Mayday", our October 2015 series on these issues.

Climate Change and the Gulf of Maine, Parts 1 & 2

For the past ten years, the Gulf of Maine has warmed more rapidly than anyplace else in the world's oceans, save for a section of the Kuroshio Current northeast of Japan, with 2012 the hottest year on record since observations began in the Civil War era. The effects have been manifold and sobering, particularly when you consider that even at the more gradual projected warming rates, 2012-like conditions will be the "new normal" by mid-century.

For the past few months, I've been at work on a multi-part series on this issue for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, where I'm a staff writer. The resulting series -- seven stories over six days reported from across the region -- kicked off in this week's Telegram.

The first story provides the overview, along with a sidebar on how, under outgoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadian officials interfered with my attempts to communicate with government scientists there about their research.

Today's story -- Part 2 of 6 -- is on concerns over how warming will effect the sort-of "krill of the gulf", a copepod species that most everything else int he food chain ultimately depends on. Puffins and right whales are among our canaries.

"Mayday" has its own landing page where the additional stories will be posted as they come out.

Readers of the series may also be interested in my first two books, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas (which looks at the global crisis) and The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (a cultural and environmental history of coastal Maine.)

I'll be speaking on Ocean's End at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, Maine November 19th.

[Update, 11/20/17: Two years later, the state has done very little to address the problem.]

Too many towns? Lessons on consolidation from the Maritimes

For decades, Mainers have debated whether our "home rule" system of strong, usually tiny municipal government is holding the state back. Here every one of our more than 400 towns is a small republic unto itself, with broad powers that in southern or mid-Atlantic states would lie with counties. The vast majority have such small populations -- often less than 2000, and not infrequently under 1000 -- that they retain the town meeting form of government, a pure form of democracy where the assembled citizens vote directly on measures by a show of hands. But, critics say, perhaps a state of just 1.3 million can't afford such a system; thus calls to merge towns or to confer some of their powers on Maine's counties, which currently have hardly any at all.

I wrote on this topic a few months ago in the Maine Sunday Telegram, and in the process became interested in the experiences of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canadian provinces very similar to Maine in physical size, population size, economics, environment, and culture. Both provinces have worked to consolidate municipal government -- "amalgamation" is the word Canadians use -- for decades, but with mixed success. In Nova Scotia, counties have generally assumed powers of towns that find they are no longer viable, while in New Brunswick there was a campaign to force towns to merge.

How did it all turn out? While in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick earlier this summer, I looked for lessons for Maine. What I learned is in this piece in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram. Here's an excerpt:

“Most of the arguments about efficiency don’t really pan out,” says James McDavid of the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, who studies municipal mergers. “You might get some efficiencies if you talk about amalgamating infrastructure like roads, sewer and water, but the argument falls off the rails when you’re dealing with functions involving human beings interacting with residents.” That’s because wages and benefits usually rise after a merger, especially when unionized police, fire or public works departments are involved.

Enjoy the piece.

[Update, 8/12/15: The Portland Press Herald editorial department came out with this editorial based on the piece.]

When the Wabanaki ruled the waves...with European vessels

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram you'll find my piece on a little-known aspect of early American colonial history: the dominance of the Gulf of Maine and the nearshore waters of the Maritimes by the region's native inhabitants, the Wabanaki, who include the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Penobscots, and other nations.

The fascinating element: that the very first explorers in the Gulf of Maine encountered Indians using captured European sailing vessels with great skill, and that later colonial fishermen and mariners would find themselves on the losing end of maritime raids by Indians using both native and European vessels.

The essay is occasioned by a new and somewhat flawed academic paper in the Journal of American History -- one that tries to place the Wabanaki story within the "hot" academic field of Atlantic World studies, arguing that the tribes had geopolitical ambitions to block the creation of the British mercantile world. As you'll see in the piece, that's rather a stretch, but the topic at hand is a fascinating one.

Tidal power comes of age, in Maine of all places

For the better part of a decade now, I've been covering the development of a new form of renewable energy here in the Gulf of Maine / Bay of Fundy region, home to the world's highest tides.

Tides -- which run about 10 feet here in Portland, and over 50 feet at the head of the Bay of Fundy -- pack an enormous amount of energy, a fact that led early 20th century engineers to propose damming entire bays in eastern Maine as part of Hoover Dam-scale energy projects. The ecological effect would have been enormous, of course, so it's probably a good thing these projects were never completed. (Parts were built under F.D.R., including the causeway linking Eastport (a.k.a Moose Island) to the mainland.)

But the new iteration of tidal power requires no dams and, indeed, appears to have little if any adverse effect on the environment. After years of development, it's finally going commercial on this continent, starting next month in Cobscook Bay, between the two easternmost towns in the United States, Eastport and Lubec, Maine, where the tides run 20 feet.

My front page piece in yesterday's Maine Sunday Telegram tells the story of how a Maine start-up company has managed to take the lead in an industry that's attracted the likes of Siemens and Lockheed Martin, and the opportunities and challenges ahead for them and their competitors as they seek to expand in the region.

Talking tidal power on PRI's Living on Earth

I've been covering the infant tidal power industry -- which happens to be taking shape here in the Gulf of Maine region -- for several years now. Last month, perhaps the world leader in the field -- Ocean Renewable Power Co. of Portland -- towed their prototype turbine down from Eastport to show off to the public and the media.

Public Radio International's Living On Earth covered the event, and interviewed me thereafter for some of the context. The segment is airing week on public radio stations nationwide and is up online at PRI's website.

For some of my previous coverage of the tidal industry, start with my Christian Science Monitor and Down East features.

Eastern Maine: the Kitty Hawk of Tidal Power

The Bay of Fundy has the world's highest tides, so perhaps it's not surprising that a new and more promising generation of tidal energy generating devices is being tested there. But within the moon-wracked estuary -- most of which is in Canada -- it's a company in eastern Maine that's become the apparent front-runner, beating out older, larger European competitors.

My story in the new weekly print edition of The Christian Science Monitor has the details on the Ocean Renewable Power Company, their tests to date, and what the Fundy tides did to their competition. It's also just come up online, for the cellulose averse among you.

Tidal Power surges forward

Wind energy gets most of the attention on the renewable front these days, but a new generation of tidal energy technologies promise to generate environmentally-friendly flows of electricity in quantities that can be predicted decades ahead of time.

Not surprisingly, the Bay of Fundy region -- southern New Brunswick, the left side of Nova Scotia, and easternmost Maine -- is emerging as the leading test center for the industry worldwide; it has the world's largest tides, peaking at 50 feet at the head of Nova Scotia's Minas Basin (and still a healthy twenty feet on the Maine-New Brunswick border.) But what has surprised industry experts is that a Maine-based start-up has leapfrogged ahead of its older European competitors to become the forerunner in making the technology commercially viable.

I tell the story in this feature in the new issue of Down East, including the hopes its generating in Easternmost Maine, where F.D.R. intended to build the world's largest tidal project in the depths of the last Great Depression. (Unfortunately, the piece had to be cut for space at the last minute, so I'll likely be reporting some lost details in another venue.)

One programing note: hiatus complete, I'll be back in the magazine's Talk of Maine column next issue.

[Update, 11/15/10, 12:00: The government of Canada just announced it's investing $20 million in Nova Scotia's tidal energy test site.]

Maine: Press Herald fails readers again

I'm trying to avoid having this space become a running commentary on the shortcomings of Maine's former newspaper of record, the Portland Press Herald, but once again they've churned out a story so jaw-droppingly bad, I can't help but tear into them again.

Yesterday's paper contained a puff piece -- a puff piece! -- on Ocean Properties, the development firm behind the greatest Portland political scandal of the past decade. Ann Kim's piece "Ocean Properties' brand boosts racino's allure" touts its "reputation for having a golden touch."

Uh, right.

Ms. Kim and her editors failed to mention the fact that right here in Portland, the company allied with certain city councilors who deceived the public into thinking a critical piece of public infrastructure -- the city-owned Maine State Pier -- was in critical disrepair, and could only be saved by leasing it to the company for the better part of a century so they could build a $100 million waterfront hotel and office complex on top of it. Company personnel gave lavishly to the campaigns of city councilors Jill Duson, Dan Skolnik, and Dory Waxman (who they had employed as a community organizer for the project), all of whom refused to recuse themselves from Ocean Properties-related votes. Mayor Ed Suslovic and ex-mayor Jim Cloutier both lost their seats in the ensuing food fight, reshaping the city council.

Only later did it emerge that the city had known the whole time that the only reason the pier needed $26 million in "repairs" was so it would be strong enough to build an Ocean Properties-like development on top of it.

The Press Herald ignored this story under its previous owners. Under Rich "We don't sell news" Connor, it is whitewashing the past, even turning to Ms. Duson as a source on OP's reputation. One hopes the fact that former OP front man Bob Baldacci is a part owner of the paper isn't playing a role.

Maybe part of the problem is that there are few people left at the paper who know anything about this city. That would explain last week's editorial on the resumption of ferry service to Nova Scotia that wrongly asserts that The Cat and Scotia Prince docked in Halifax, not Yarmouth. If you don't understand even the basic routes the service has used (and why those route lengths make economic sense) you shouldn't be editorializing on them.

(For more on the history of Portland waterfront issues, start here. For the campaign finance disclosures of city councilors, start here. For the disclosures documenting OP's contributions to city councilors, download this pdf. For background on ferries, start here.)

A package for J.D. Salinger, and other tales

A few items worth reading this week:

J.D Salinger, who'd been hiding out for decades in a hilltop redoubt in Cornish, New Hampshire, died last week His desire for privacy was so complete that many residents of the tiny town didn't know he was there and, if they did, kept mum about it in that laudable Northern New England way. Turns out the Forecaster's very own Steve Mistler is from Cornish, and has this entertaining account of his chance discovery of his famous neighbor while on the job for FedEx.

Maine may have difficulty winning a replacement for The Cat, a high-speed catamaran that recently gave up the runs to Nova Scotia from Portland and Bar Harbor. Industry watchers have long said that a standard ferry makes more sense on the run (now that fuel prices are high) and that operators might seek to operate in or closer to Boston, which has a much larger customer base. MaineBiz has picked up on this. Meanwhile, Nova Scotia taxpayers have been surprised to learn that that they're on the hook to The Cat's owners for $3 million for not renewing a subsidy of $6 million to keep the service going. Looks like somebody hired a clever contract lawyer.

Further afield, read what happens when a journalist leaves his notebook on a suburban train in Japan's teeming capital at The Blog of Rob, and what my Bratislava-based colleague Michael J. Jordan, recently returned from Hong Kong, thinks his Chinese journalism students will take back with them from exposure to the less restrictive island, with its Twitter access and all the rest.

The Oak Island Treasure Mystery : a 19th century hoax?

Buried treasure enthusiasts may be interested in my column on the famous Oak Island "money pit" across the water in Nova Scotia in the current issue of Working Waterfront. The article airs the case for this -- perhaps the most famous "buried treasure" mystery of them all -- having been a 19th century hoax gone wild.

As others have noted before me, the legends surrounding Oak Island -- rehashed in a shelf's worth of books -- bear many of the characteristics of those in circulation in New England and New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, when thousands were afflicted with treasure digging mania, digging up islands, fields, and hillsides from Manhattan to Mount Desert.

The piece has only been out for two days, but I'm already getting mail from Oak Island cognoscenti. One, who runs this website, notes that technically the current owners of Oak Island don't yet have permission to resume digging and, due to last month's provincial elections in Nova Scotia, may have difficulty securing it. (Nova Scotia's Treasure Trove Act -- yes, there really is one -- allegedly has enemies within the new ruling party.)

Perhaps the treasure really is defended by evil spirits.