My first experience with a right whale was as a college student alone on the deck of a twenty-seven-foot sailboat. Suddenly, beside me was what looked like a sandbar the length of the boat. Yet, it was alive and moving forward. Those below decks thought I was having an epileptic attack. I had never imagined…
In August 1817, the learned men of the Linnaean Society of New England had studied their Bestiaries, ancient, illustrated volumes of all the animals. They set out from Boston for Gloucester’s high rocky shore to survey the seascape. There, they found what they were looking for. The sea serpent was a “60 to 100-foot long, black, shiny,…
“Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than four feet (1.25 meters) of water.” This report was alarming for many who relied on experts’ findings, particularly regarding climate change. It was not scary for those who paid attention in Geography…
The forests of the U.S. Northeast are in peril. Global warming has raised temperatures, improving conditions for insects such as the emerald ash borer, to ravage trees already stressed due to drought and scorching summers. Massachusetts forests experienced 97 wildfires across the state during the summer of 2022. Keeping pace with destruction by fire is…
The tall ship, Tecla, a Dutch North Sea sailing herring dragger built in 1915, was tied by three heavy hawser lines to the ferry quay in Ullapool, Northwest Scotland, a town of white-washed buildings packed together for the herring fishery. Most of us had arrived the evening before and we were ready to sail except…
With rising seas, fighting climate change is a participatory challenge of us against the elements. It is all hands-on deck reducing carbon emissions. Friday, President Biden stood by the Red Sea in Egypt before delegates from 197 nations at the UN Climate Conference COP27. With Republicans taking the majority of the House and Congress hogtied…
“Algae eats the fertilizer. Then there are too many algae, no more oxygen and the fish die.” “Carbon capture, yes.” “Do not take away my bees.” “I’ll leave the bees.” “I think water has got to stay at the top. Because we in a drought” “Fertilizer creates sunspills. I feel that could be lower down.”…
The triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution is a threat to everyone, everywhere. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN Three of the world’s greatest environmental problems are increasingly being met and thwarted in residential neighborhoods across Massachusetts. The dastardly trio are nutrient pollution causing harmful algal blooms (ocean dead zones), degradation and…
