Warming temperatures and a longer growing season will benefit agriculture in the state, but pathogens, pests and extreme weather also are likely to accompany the milder winters, according to the Maine Climate Council.
Penelope Overton
Staff Writer
Penny Overton is excited to be the Portland Press Herald’s first climate reporter. Since joining the paper in 2016, she has written about Maine’s lobster and cannabis industries, covered state politics and spent a fellowship year exploring the impact of climate change on the lobster fishery with the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team. Before moving to Maine, she has covered politics, environment, casino gambling and tribal issues in Florida, Connecticut, and Arizona. Her favorite assignments allow her to introduce readers to unusual people, cultures, or subjects. When off the clock, Penny is usually getting lost in a new book at a local coffeehouse, watching foreign crime shows or planning her family’s next adventure.
Posted inMaine, News
Climate change is already affecting Mainers’ health, doctors say
The most direct link between climate change and public health in Maine can be found between warming temperatures and heat-related illnesses and diseases spread by ticks that no longer die off in winter.
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Posted inMaine, News
Climate resilience commission starts work in lucrative port: Stonington
The newly formed panel aims travel around Maine to identify storm-ravaged communities whose needs do not fit neatly into federal disaster relief categories.
Posted inMaine, Politics
Gov. Mills to create commission to prepare Maine for more battering storms
Mills will sign an executive order Tuesday to create the commission in the wake of an extremely warm and stormy winter.
Posted inHealth, Maine, News
Maine is playing ‘catch-up’ to prepare for health impacts of climate change
That’s the message the Maine Climate Council hears during the first of 3 scientific briefings geared toward updating the state’s climate action plan by the end of the year.
Posted inMaine, Outdoors
A remote forest thrives, thanks to woodswomen
The team behind a 180-acre community woodland near Brownville in Piscataquis County brings a collaborative, relationship-based approach to how it manages the land. The female-centric collective may be entirely accidental, but its focus on empowerment may be crucial to adapting to climate change.
Posted inMaine, Schools & Education
Students to help Casco Bay communities plan for a warmer, wetter future
The students will be asked to research and design novel ways of living and working in Portland, South Portland and the Casco Bay islands as the climate changes.
Posted inMaine
Long Creek watershed violations cost landlord $650,000
Well-known Portland landlord Joseph Soley has paid more than $650,000 in fees and fines for clean water violations at property he owns near the Maine Mall in South Portland.
Posted inMaine
High levels of forever chemicals in Maine birds add to concern about food chain
Researchers in Maine are trying to understand how perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are affecting fish, birds and mammals.
Posted inMaine
Major data breach involving 2 Maine firms headed to court
BerryDunn, a Portland accounting firm, and Reliable Networks of Biddeford are trading blame about who is responsible for the breach that resulted in the theft of personal information ranging from Social Security numbers to medical data of more than a million people.