Maine Outdoors Organizations and Activists

Jeff Letourneau, executive director of NetworkMaine

Old Town Canoe still sells wooden canoes, though only five or so a year, according to Cote. They are, after all, the most expensive to build and retail for more than $7,000 a piece. Because of the low demand, the company outsources their construction to an artisan in Dover-Foxcroft who makes them by hand.

In Maine, the value of Mother Nature, not counting tourism dollars, natural resource-based businesses or other revenue derived from the outdoors, accounts for more than $14 billion per year.

One example in the study is Sebago Lake, which provides drinking water that’s clean enough not to be filtered before it is piped to the 200,000 customers of the Portland Water District. The study estimates the EPA’s filtration waiver — based on the cleanliness of Sebago Lake — has saved taxpayers at least $146 million, which is the approximate cost of a new water filtration plant.

“It took the scientific community some time I think to realize that the scientific community is in a street fight with climate change deniers and they are not playing by the rules of engagemen

Though it has worked well enough to get us this far down evolution’s challenging road, our risk perception system, which blends thinking and feeling and mostly takes place subconsciously, often produces fears that fly in the face of the facts.  Many of us are more afraid of some risks — like mercury or pesticides or genetically modified food — than the evidence warrants. And many of us aren’t as concerned about some really dire dangers as we ought to be, like climate change, particulate pollution or acidification of the ocean  The problem is, being too afraid, or not afraid enough — a phenomenon I call “the perception gap” — produces dangers all by itself, For that reason, it’s worth exploring just why our fears don’t match the facts, as a first step toward protecting ourselves from the real dangers that arise when we get risk wrong.

We can avoid relying solely on the often-alarmist news media, or on friends who only reinforce how we already feel.

There’s a need for training and in filling in the gaps between the extremely casual tweeting, say, and the I.P.C.C. assessment report. There’s a whole range of levels of communication that could fit in between those two things…. The stuff in the middle, that’s where the people who know what they’re talking about should be acting, because we’re not there collectively now.Some of us are. But we’re not there collectively, and that kind of cedes that whole field to the people who don’t know anything and the people who are more fond of their own voice than they are of the facts and the people who want to disinform and misinform the public.So it’s that area in the middle, the hinterland between the paper and the tweet, where I think there’s a lot more scope for us to communicate and where, quite frankly, the field is wide open.

Ocean Renewable Power Co. aims to begin installation of its first grid-connected power unit in mid-March at a 60-acre site in Cobscook Bay at the nation’s easternmost tip.

All told, the company sees up to 50 megawatts of tidal power potential in the Eastport and Lubec areas, enough to power thousands of homes, Sauer said.

The completed pilot project will produce enough electricity for about 100 homes.