Stormwater continues to be a major source of pollution to the Great Bay estuary. When it rains, runoff carries a wide range of pollutants – from dog waste and lawn fertilizers, to gasoline and oil, to heavy metals, nutrients and sediments – that flow into our waters with little or no treatment. To combat this pollution, the UNH Stormwater Center and other local groups are working with Seacoast communities to implement projects at a neighborhood level to reduce the flow of untreated stormwater reaching the estuary. While many of these projects are small in scope, they demonstrate the value of dealing with stormwater close to home. One of the most interesting approaches is based on a program that was developed in Maine. In 2009, the Kennebunkport Conservation Commission, in partnership read more…

The take home message is simple: Averting the climate disaster can't be about party politics. We all lose if that is where the battle lines are drawn on the single most important issue facing our country. Averting the climate disaster requires science and the courage to act on it. read more..

Memorandum To: The President Elect From: John Kassel, President of CLF Date: November 6, 2012, 11:30 a.m. First, let me offer my sincere congratulations. Whichever candidate you are, you have won a hard fought victory. Well done. With your victory comes the responsibility to lead this country safely through the most critical issues of our day. Judging by your campaign I am afraid that is something you have already shown you will not do. During the campaign, you were largely silent on climate change. During each one of the debates, for instance, none of the moderators asked a question – and you didn’t push the issue to the fore. When asked about the economy, you didn’t say that not addressing climate change presents the single largest risk of market failure read more…

We’re still counting the casualties and costs, but one thing is sure: after a second “hundred year” event in the last two years in New England (last year’s Hurricane Irene and this week’s Sandy), we need to pay some sober attention to building our region’s capacity to roll with the climate punches. “Adaptation,” “adaptability,” “resilience,” “adaptive capacity,” and “vulnerability” are all part of the emerging vocabulary that seeks to describe a basic and simple question: what prudent steps should we be taking to ensure that we can lower the risks and minimize the effects of severe events linked to climate change even as we strive to lessen greenhouse gases? In the wake of this week’s destruction, it’s worth considering how best to engage our communities in the kind of thoughtful read more…

The full impact of this hurricane is still becoming known. The storm has taken at least 94 lives, including those of two small boys who were recovered after several days of searching. As a father of two young children this sent a shock wave through my psyche. I feel very fortunate that my extended family and friends along the Atlantic seaboard suffered no more than a power outage and a few lost roof shingles. As if the floods of early 2010 and Hurricane Irene weren’t enough, the latest photos and news accounts from New Jersey and the New York City area create a smashing realization that the really massive hurricane disasters, the Katrina-like disasters which take years to recover from, aren’t just relegated to the Gulf coast and the Deep read more…

Ocean planning is a practice proudly developed in New England. We’ve often written about the success of the Massachusetts Ocean Plan and the Rhode Island Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), as well as ways that ocean planning already works in New England. Now we are excited to announce a new network of ocean users supporting the National Ocean Policy. CLF has joined together with dozens of groups throughout New England, including the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Surfrider Foundation, Massport, the New England Aquarium, Sierra Club chapters, and the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association to help build a sustainable future for New England’s ocean, coasts, and the communities that depend on them. Founded to support the development of the nation’s first regional ocean plan, the New England Ocean Action Network (NEOAN) brings read more…

Change is hard. And the larger, more important and more entrenched the thing being changed, the harder it is. There are few things that are larger and more important than our electricity system. Just ask a parent of a child who was in the intensive care unit of a New York City hospital when Hurricane Sandy wiped away the electric grid and the emergency generators failed. In some moments, like that, electricity is quite literally a life-saver. In 1882, the world’s first practical coal fired electric power plant came online in New York. For the last fifty years coal has been the dominant fuel and backbone of our electric generation system, spawning a  massive industrial process of extracting coal from the earth, transporting it to power plants, burning it to read more…

Each of us personally experienced in some way Superstorm Sandy slamming into our communities all along the East Coast. For many of us, the destruction has been widespread and severe and will be long-lasting. In New England, our neighbors in Rhode Island and Connecticut have been dealt a particularly devastating blow. read more..

What do the 2010 March Floods, Hurricane Irene, and Tropical Storm Sandy all have in common? These three 100-year events (meaning there is a 1% chance of this type of storm happening once a year) have all occurred within the past two and half years. Failing to change how we view significant storm events (e.g., it’s just a fluke), affects how well and whether we plan for future storm events. Viewing these storms as “just a bad run,” or “ a freak storm” denies the reality of a changing climate and its effect on weather, precipitation and the severity of storms. In this way, our point of view can threaten our ability to change our approach to development and planning in a way that preserves our assets for future generations. read more…

By now, you have undoubtedly seen the photos – Manhattan’s flooded streets and subway system, fallen trees in Massachusetts, debris littering beaches and towns up and down the Eastern seaboard. Sandy’s impacts were not only widespread, reaching from the Caribbean to Nova Scotia, but they were record-breaking in severity. It is no exaggeration to say that the effects of climate change are being felt – not tomorrow or in any other vague future – but right now. Today. We have rounded up a selection of CLF’s articles on Hurricane Sandy, on climate change and on the connection between a warming climate and increasing weather volatility. read more..