Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • Earth Notes: Let’s recognize ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’

    By Cynthia Hoeh Stancioff Guest Columnist As the brief, dreary, gray winter days begin to lengthen and yield to spring’s brightening, we frost-weary Mainers rejoice at the first promises of warmth and sun. This change and the preceding darkness are part of the thrill of living in the north. We experience, and pride ourselves in […]

  • Earth Notes: Our need to be more connected

    By Megan-Mack Nicholson Guest Columnist If you were to think about the largest organism on earth, what would you imagine? Maybe an elephant? Or possibly a blue whale? What if I were to tell you the largest organism on earth spanned 108 acres, weighed 6,000 tons and was up to several thousand years old… and […]

  • Earth Notes: The Faith to Trust Science

    By Rev. Robert Plaisted Guest Columnist In 1960, a group of wide-eyed high school juniors stared at a patch of white powder in a metal dish. I was one of them. Our teacher had just performed a classic chemistry experiment — mixing a pre-measured quantity of hydrochloric acid (very corrosive), with a pre-measured quantity of […]

  • Independent Thought — When the panic hits

    By Rev. Robert Plaisted Guest Columnist What will we do when the panic hits? It’s coming, you know, sure as God made little green apples. Merriam-Webster defines panic this way: “sudden, overpowering fright,” “sudden, unreasoning terror often accompanied by mass flight,” or “sudden, widespread fright concerning financial affairs.” All those definitions share characteristics in common. […]

  • Earth Notes: Changes that change us

    By Megan-Mack Nicholson Guest Columnist I’m a lover of winter. A lover of all the seasons, really. It would be hard for me to pick a favorite season other than the season I’m in at any given moment. The symphony of peepers and still canoeing waters of spring as you watch the water birds return […]

  • Recycling Matters — Awesome aluminum

    By Sally Chappell Bridgton Recycling Committee Even as the oceans swirl with human-generated trash and as we devote more precious land to landfills, we hear that recycling isn’t worth the bother. How untrue! Surely, the difficulties of recycling plastic need to be addressed. More progress needs to happen with the different plastic formulas taken in […]

  • Earth Notes — What good is a dead tree?

    By Cynthia Stancioff Guest Columnist I’ve been appreciating dead trees more and more lately, since they seem to be increasingly under-valued by average property owners. I say: A dead tree is no less important than a live tree! It seems most people respond to the death of a tree by removing it from sight immediately, […]

  • Recycling Matters: Remember when…?

    By Sally Chappell Bridgton Recycling Committee It surely can be agreed that change of any type is difficult. Change provokes anxiety — something we try to avoid, but when that something becomes so glaringly upsetting that it causes us misery, then change becomes not only possible but necessary. We only have to look at societal […]

  • Earth Notes: Groundhogs and Their Diets

    By Nancy Donovan, Ph.D.,PT Master Gardener Volunteer A few years ago, I was on my knees in my garden placing the pots of newly purchased plants in potential permanent spots. Something was moving near my front stairs and so I stood up to look. Lo and behold, it was a groundhog looking straight at me […]

  • Earth Notes: Summer song, temporarily interrupted

    By Mary Jewett Guest Columnist In the past two years, where I live in Lovell, we have been visited by spongy moth caterpillars. Last year, they showed up after the leaves were already out, methodically munching their way through our trees. Oak, maples, beech, witch hazel, birch, no species was safe. At the end of […]