A grant from the Maine Coastal Program will allow regulators to more precisely identify what areas of the Washington County coast need to be closed to shellfish harvesting after heavy rains.

Ship calls to Portland’s International Marine Terminal have steadily increased, more and more Maine officials, economic developers and business people have made the trek to Reykjavik to meet the neighbors, and more Maine goods are outbound along Eimskip’s “Green Line” route to Europe.

In the Arctic, islanders are being forced to abandon the land where they’ve lived for generations, because eroding coastlines and rising sea levels have made their homes uninhabitable. As permafrost melts and the ice retreats, they are losing the fishing and hunting on which their livelihood depends.

Their appreciation of the island reminded me to listen again to the quiet.

Sticky, tar sands oil, with its propensity to sink, poses a substantial, long-term, risks to life on the sea floor.

Over the past two decades, public access to the coast has been challenged in court across the state, at places like Cedar Beach, Goose Rocks and Eastport. Experts expect more of those challenges as waterfront property values soar, along with the public’s desire to access it for recreation and commercial activity.

In an overview of climate change science at the public forum held in advance of the Arctic Council meetings in Portland, Sen. Angus King concluded that “something serious is happening, and it’s happening faster than we thought.”

You’re not going to be able to tell them in three weeks it’s going to be rainy outside your house, but you might be able to tell them … it’s going to be above average in the East.

By executive order, Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument which bans commercial fishing, mining and drilling within a 4,913-square-mile area.