Recent local events give me hope at a time when climate change news is becoming more and more dire.
Climate change
July 22, 2021
Kate Warner
As a heat dome persists over the American West, an untamable wildfire rages over southern Oregon and record hot temperatures and water shortages make life in the West difficult, floods in much of Europe — Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, parts of England and now China — have also had a devastating effect.
July 22, 2021
Noah Asimow
Eversource has canceled a long-awaited battery energy storage project planned for Martha’s Vineyard, complicating a plan to achieve ambitious green energy goals on the Vineyard.
August 12, 2021
Brendan O'Neill
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission is taking an important step to address the Island’s growth crisis through a new carrying capacity study.
2014
September 15, 2014
More than 200,000 people are expect to converge on Central Park West in New York city on Sunday for the People’s Climate March. At least 22 of them will be from the Vineyard. Buses traveling to the march from Cape Cod are already full with a wait list.
2013
August 22, 2013
Have you been noticing the reports since Hurricane Sandy, consistently, nearly every week, all over the world — of very extreme weather events and conditions? If you’ve been denying yourself the opportunity to keep up on the details, now would be a good time to break the habit.
July 18, 2013
As rapid erosion continues to threaten the Gay Head Light, a possible solution emerged this week to help mitigate the situation as the town embarks on a complicated, longer-term project to move the lighthouse.
2012
November 1, 2012
In following the news coverage of Hurricane Sandy, I was struck by a strange reversal in reporting from before and after the storm. In the days leading up to landfall, the effect of climate change on the likelihood, strength or impacts of the storm was largely ignored; in accounts of the damage post-Sandy, the subject of climate change has been routinely raised.
August 23, 2012
As drastic erosion continues to eat away at Chilmark’s south shore, town officials this week expressed grave concern for public safety and impeded access to Lucy Vincent and Squibnocket beaches. The Chilmark board of selectmen also approved a study for the extreme Upper Chilmark Pond, known as Upper Upper Chilmark Pond to some, for a possible dune restoration project.
August 16, 2012
To anyone who has spent a languid summer afternoon tumbling in the waves on South Beach or watched the earth’s closest star dip into the horizon at Menemsha, the ocean can seem eternal and unchanging. But scientists are increasingly discovering that human activity is transforming what was once thought to be an invulnerable resource. The ocean is getting warmer, more acidic, louder and filled with the detritus of civilization. What effect these changes will have on the ocean’s inhabitants in the decades to come is unclear.
