With summer right around the corner, striped bass are starting to arrive in New Hampshire’s coastal waters. With their arrival, anglers from near and far flock to the state's coastal rivers, estuaries and ocean waters to pursue this popular sport fish. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is conducting a Striped Bass Volunteer Angler Survey and they need your help! The annual striped bass survey has been ongoing since 1993 and the information collected is used in the annual coast-wide stock assessment for striped bass. read more..

This week Rhode Island’s dominant utility, National Grid, made its first-ever filing with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) under Rhode Island’s newly enacted “revenue decoupling” statute. Grid’s filing resolves once and for all a debate that has been swirling around the environmental community in Rhode Island (and the rest of New England) for years – an argument over whether decoupling is a rip-off of utility rate-payers. CLF (and other environmental advocates) have argued for years that there are important environmental benefits to be reaped from decoupling. Opponents, including some ratepayer advocates, argued that decoupling would be bad for rate-payers because it would inevitably lead to unjustified rate hikes. read more..

If you love the Earth, free music and great food, you should be at Earthfest on the Hatch Shell this Saturday! This annual event, presented courtesy of Radio 92.9, features hundreds of environmentally-friendly vendors and sponsors along with local non-profits doing work right in your backyard, such as your favorite non-profit, CLF! Stop by our booth for a face painting of your favorite oceanic creature or fill out a ticket for a chance at a great prize or just chat with one of our many dedicated staffers about the work we’re doing across the region. We’ll be located in the non-profit exhibitor area between the Main Events area and the Vendor Cafe. The event will also feature free music from some great groups such as Eve 6, Third Eye Blind, read more…

A fairly accurate critique of climate advocates and global warming advocacy can be that we can be a bit depressing. This is not surprising when we are telling a story about how current trends will lead to large portions of the world becoming uninhabitable and sea levels rising to swallow many of our coastal cities and every day another study comes out that shows even the unenforceable and aspirational pledges by our governments will not be met and we face "potentially disastrous consequences." But an different and reoccurring theme in work around climate is interesting interaction with "adult" beverages like wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages - and not just because it is tempting to give up and just spend the day drinking (perhaps at a Green Drinks event for environmentalists). read more..

Maine lobsterman Richard Nelson on getting involved with the National Ocean Policy and a weekly roundup of interesting fish- and fishing-related stories. read more..

We are in the midst of a massive, historic retreat in the nation’s use of coal to produce electricity, which began in 2008. This ongoing shift away from our dirtiest fuel has made news around the country. The primary reason: coal-fired power plants – expensive new facilities and decades-old dinosaurs alike – can’t compete in today’s marketplace. Investors and customers are moving toward cleaner, cheaper alternatives, principally natural gas but also renewables (especially wind) and high-tech ways of reducing energy use. The national trend is occurring here in New Hampshire and throughout New England. This week, New Hampshire learned that PSNH is not operating its flagship coal plant, Merrimack Station in Bow, and that its economic prospects are not good. In fact, the plant will sit completely idle for six months of read more…

We’re thrilled to be co-sponsoring Majora Carter’s public presentation “Home(town) Security” on Wednesday, May 9, at 7:00 p.m. in Concord, New Hampshire.  A pioneer of sustainability in the South Bronx, Majora has been a champion of identifying and implementing creative local solutions to make communities healthy, vibrant places for all people. Majora founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001, introducing green solutions to build healthier, more sustainable communities with creative solutions like greenbelts, rooftop gardens and bike paths.  Her work earned her a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (“Genius Award”) in 2005. Since 2008, Majora’s consulting company has exported climate adaptation, urban micro-AgriBusiness and leadership development strategies for business, government, foundations, universities and economically under-performing communities.  Majora hosts the Peabody Award winning public-radio series “The Promised Land.” Come learn about the inspiring story read more…

The end of any legislative session is tumultuous. Vermont’s citizen legislature, that meets part-time only a few months each year, is no different. In this year’s end-of-session tumult, progress on clean energy was left on the cutting room floor. This is a big disappointment. The same legislature that made skiing and snowboarding Vermont’s official winter sports failed to pass legislation that would keep those sports off the endangered list. The Vermont Legislature stripped the Renewable Energy Standard from the energy bill it approved. Renewable standards require utilities to help address climate change by providing their customers with a certain percentage of power from clean, renewable sources. The more power we get from clean sources, the less power we get from older and dirtier fossil fuel plants. Twenty-nine states, including every read more…

Until the last week or so, it’s been a dry spring here in Maine and so most of us have welcomed the recent spate of rain. But as I rode past the Back Cove and the East End Wastewater treatment plant in Portland this morning, it was hard not to think about the downside of all this rain–the runoff from streets, rooftops and other hard surfaces that overwhelms our sewer system and treatment facilities and washes untreated right into Back Cove and Casco Bay, carrying pollutants like oil, metals, waste and other accumulated debris along with it. It’s no surprise that these concerns might occur to me, given CLF’s long-standing involvement in tackling this issue, but it doesn’t take an advocate to see the need for action. For Chris Aceto, read more…

A keystone to CLF’s work to secure a clean energy future for the region is completing the transition to a coal-free New England. It is a time of historic progress: cleaner, cheaper alternatives are driving coal out of the market, and old coal plants are closing their doors. But Massachusetts remains a critical battleground for CLF’s work, with two costly old coal-fired power plants continuing to jeopardize public health and stoke climate change. That’s why we’re delighted to tell you about an event hosted by Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker entitled “The True Cost of Energy: Coal.” Councilor Decker has invited the public to a panel discussing the true costs of coal and a free screening of the critically acclaimed documentary The Last Mountain in Cambridge, MA, on Wednesday, May read more…