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Associated Press
16 hours ago
- Science
- Associated Press
How will Maine's coastal spruce forests handle climate change?
As a cadre of Maine foresters and ecologists shuffled down the sun-baked roads of Surry Forest on Wednesday they were faced with the same sweltering heat they are trying to prepare Maine's coastal forests for in the face of climate change. Like much of Maine's coast, this 2,100-acre tract of land likely hosted shady, lichen-covered stands of red spruce forests before it was heavily harvested and succeeded by sun-tolerant species like oak and aspen. But since the tract was purchased by the Blue Hill Heritage Trust in 2017, ecologists with the University of Maine have been working with the Blue Hill group, state foresters and others to try and restore red spruce to Surry Forest. The effort is part of a regional research project studying how best to manage coastal spruce forests under intensifying heat and drought. 'A lot of the places that had red spruce along the coast of Maine don't have it anymore for a variety of land use and management reasons,' said Jay Wason, the University of Maine professor spearheading the project, during Wednesday's workshop. 'We want to better understand where red spruce is along the coast of Maine and what its current condition is.' The breadth of challenges that climate change and land use pose to red spruce are laid bare in a forest management guide by Rose Gellman, a UMaine master of forestry student, that was published as part of the project. The coastal spruce forests where Wabanaki people have lived for millennia shifted from seeing low-intensity fire and cultivation to heavy harvesting with the arrival of European settlers, Gellman writes. Since then, most Maine forests have been cut at least twice over. Despite a transition to more precise harvesting techniques in recent years, coastal spruce forests have not recovered, and climate change models show their habitat range will shrink significantly by 2060. These downward trends haven't robbed Gellman and other spruce proponents of hope, however. The guide and accompanying research serve as resources for foresters like Jw Harriman of Blue Hill Heritage Trust to consult as they push restoration efforts forward. In Surry Forest, Harriman has been experimenting with a management technique to open up the forest and plant sun-tolerant species of oak to leverage their broad leaves and create layered, shady habitat that spruce thrive in. The initiative has been set back by deer and caterpillars that have nipped away the oak leaves, yet Harriman and forester Nicole Rogers with the Maine Forest Service say it has been helpful in determining what works for spruce restoration and how to strengthen Maine forests more broadly. 'I might want this to be a full blown red spruce forest, and that just may not happen in my lifetime anyway,' Rogers said. 'If we as a community… can communicate with each other about what worked and what didn't work, that would be huge.' Rogers added that preparing Maine for climate change means looking to species beyond red spruce to build forest resilience to heat, storms and other threats. Elsewhere in Surry Forest, Kathy Pollard is practicing that ethos by planting white oak, black walnut and other fruit-bearing trees that have historic ranges in lower Maine and further south as part of her ecology work with Know Your Land Consulting. Pollard, who is of mixed European and Cherokee descent, leads the organization with her daughter Ann Pollard-Ranco, a Penobscot Nation citizen, to bring indigenous sustainability practices to the Blue Hill Peninsula and cultivate trees for food production. 'With climate warming, a lot of those trees are… going to be marching northward,' Pollard said, while other Maine trees like beech that feed wildlife are under threat. 'So if you put out American chestnut and black walnut in some places where (beech) thrive, those will be producing food and kind of substituting… what's being lost.' The workshop ended a few miles away at Penny's Preserve, under the cool canopy of a red spruce stand. A smattering of light green mosses and lichens covered the forest floor, illuminated by soft beams of sunlight filtering through dense spruce branches. The stand is emblematic of the broader aims of the Coastal Spruce Project. It's among several that UMaine PhD student Colby Bosley-Smith is plotting, measuring and monitoring along Maine's coast. She and Wason, the project coordinator, say this vibrant, century-old stand and others that Bosley-Smith has identified can inform foresters about the conditions where spruce flourish and how spruce respond to ongoing challenges posed by climate change. ''I'm hoping that this is the start of a lot more renewed research and interest in better managing and conserving these forests,' Wason said. ___ This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
IOL News
07-07-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
The impact of Trump administration policies on climate research funding
The Trump Administration has cut federal funding for research into Climate Change Image: Doctor Ngcobo / Independent Media A $15 million federal grant was supposed to help scientists better understand how the warming climate is harming plants and animals, setting many on paths toward extinction. But the Trump administration shelved it earlier this year, miring the research in a holding pattern. Jacquelyn Gill isn't sure there's a way out. The professor of paleoecology and plant ecology at the University of Maine spent hundreds of hours readying the grant proposal, and 13 years before that gathering knowledge about how past changes to Earth's climate echoed through ecosystems. But without federal funding, she finds herself at a loss for how to keep building on that work as more species disappear. More scientists are beginning to feel that crunch. A budget document the Trump administration recently submitted to Congress calls for zeroing out climate research funding for 2026, something officials had hinted at in previous proposals but is now in lawmakers' hands. But even just the specter of President Donald Trump's budget proposals has prompted scientists to limit research activities in advance of further cuts. Trump's efforts to freeze climate research spending and slash the government's scientific workforce have for months prompted warnings of rippling consequences in years ahead. For many climate scientists, the consequences are already here. With so much uncertainty across scientific agencies and academic research centers, even prominent scientists are hitting dead ends. 'There are no safety nets,' Gill said. 'Private foundations cannot begin to pick up the slack.' Video Player is loading. 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Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ More recent administration actions have limited or even wiped access to existing climate science. The government this week canceled a contract with the journal publisher Nature, though health officials said its studies remain accessible to researchers. A week earlier, it took down where scientists posted updates about trends in U.S. and global temperatures and explainers about climate phenomena such as El Niño. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it would continue to post those materials on a different webpage. 'We're getting a message loud and clear from this administration: Climate and environmental research are not welcome in this country,' Gill said, 'I have a job, but I don't know if I have a career. I don't know how I'm supposed to do this.' The administration on Monday took down the website of an organization known as the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which housed detailed and congressionally mandated reports about the ways climate change is reshaping American life, as well as webinars, still available on YouTube, about aspects of the National Climate Assessment including sea-level rise adaptation and wildfire risks. But it's not just the website. The organization essentially no longer exists. Until the Trump administration canceled its contract this spring, the program was helping to launch the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report surveying climate impacts around the world and projecting the changes to come. Now, it's unclear how large a role some U.S.-based scientists will be able to play in the report, even if they are leaders in their field. The panel is expected to name leaders of its next report this month, and Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist and professor at Imperial College London who served as an author on a previous report, said that without U.S. participation, the project will suffer. 'It's an extremely complex and challenging process to prepare these reports,' he said. 'Not being able to draw on the world's most prominent experts, or any reduction in the kind of people you can draw on, will have knock-on effects on how challenging it will be for the remaining authors to pull this together.' On a recent visit to Britain for a conference known as London Climate Week, Martin Wolf, who was an affiliate with the Global Change Research Program until this spring, said he was struck by a contrast: As U.S. climate scientists face impossible hurdles, their counterparts in Europe are speeding ahead. In China, investments in solar and wind energy are mounting, just as Republicans in Washington are pulling them back, he added. Scientists said the disappearance of websites and reports just underscore how in several months' time, the administration's actions have started to set climate science back, while also making it harder for the public to learn about it. 'People who are already aware of the reports, they know how to find them,' Wolf said. 'What this really impacts is the curious public.' White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said the administration is acting to correct decades of federal actions prioritizing climate over 'clean American energy,' and in the process, 'jeopardizing our economic and national security.' 'Restoring our energy dominance is far more important than obsessing over vague climate change goals to the 77 million Americans who voted for President Trump,' Rogers said in a statement. 'Future generations should not be expected to forfeit the American Dream to foot the bill of ambiguous climate threats.' Arlyn Andrews spent her 21-year career at NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory tracking what scientists describe as a clear threat: the levels of carbon dioxide that have been documented as steadily rising since the 1960s. The lab's sensors have tracked those trends - including last year, when average global temperatures surged to a record high and atmospheric carbon levels took the largest single-year jump ever recorded. Those gases trigger the greenhouse effect, trapping the sun's heat like a blanket and warming the planet. But the monitoring has already suffered as the Trump administration revealed plans to drastically cut federal research efforts, and it could end if Congress approves those plans. Faced with the prospect the administration could claw back money from NOAA's current budget, Andrews said she and colleagues made the decision to halve the number of flights taken each month to gather data on greenhouse gas concentrations close to Earth's surface. Such flights from about a dozen sites show, for example, how much carbon dioxide Midwest cornfields absorb as crops grow, or how much carbon is being emitted around major cities. But the funding uncertainty made it impossible to ensure those kinds of observations would continue uninterrupted. 'When a site is terminated, that's the end of a long-term record,' Andrews said. That is especially true of an observation site at the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa, where both NOAA and the University of California at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been monitoring carbon dioxide levels for decades. Scripps' data feeds what is known as the Keeling Curve, a graph created by scientist Charles David Keeling that formed some of the earliest understanding of the greenhouse effect and climate change. Now, even the Keeling Curve is at risk, said Keeling's son Ralph Keeling, who is director of Scripps' carbon dioxide monitoring program. Keeling, too, has been trying to plan for a future in which his lab will no longer receive federal funding. He's not sure it's possible. He said he has been talking with foundations and other sources of potential funding. 'We're concerned about the viability going forward,' he said. 'I don't have revenue streams that add up to the need at this point.' For Andrews, the uncertainty became so daunting, she joined hundreds of NOAA colleagues in taking a voluntary buyout at the end of April. 'It was not an easy decision,' she said, concluding that she 'could be more impactful from a different position.' She hopes to do research on a freelance basis, and to help other former federal scientists do the same. Young scientists, however, face fewer options. Gill, 44, would normally be preparing to welcome several new graduate students to Maine in the fall, but this year, there won't be any. The University of Maine was an early target of Trump's efforts to strip diversity, equity and inclusion programs from higher education, and his administration's threats of withholding massive amounts of government funding - which it ultimately backed away from - meant that Gill could only afford to secure funding for researchers who were already at work in her lab. Now, without the $15 million National Science Foundation grant she sought to develop models of biodiversity losses informed by DNA found trapped in ice and caves, she isn't sure what's next. To continue her research, NSF staff advised her 'to look elsewhere' for research funding. She hoped to be answering questions about what might happen when plants unable to migrate to cooler climates begin to die off, or how the extinction of Earth's largest creatures will have domino effects on the smallest. But 'there is nowhere else to look for this kind of funding,' she said. Now, she only has questions about the future of research - and no answers. The Washington Post
Washington Post
05-07-2025
- Science
- Washington Post
How the Trump administration is already cutting off climate research
A $15 million federal grant was supposed to help scientists better understand how the warming climate is harming plants and animals, setting many on paths toward extinction. But the Trump administration shelved it earlier this year, miring the research in a holding pattern. Jacquelyn Gill isn't sure there's a way out. The professor of paleoecology and plant ecology at the University of Maine spent hundreds of hours readying the grant proposal, and 13 years before that gathering knowledge about how past changes to Earth's climate echoed through ecosystems. But without federal funding, she finds herself at a loss for how to keep building on that work as more species disappear.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cooper Flagg is the pride of Maine, and he's psyched to represent it in the NBA
The state of Maine, often associated with breathtaking nature and lobster rolls, is about to be front and center at this year's NBA draft, as Cooper Flagg is expected to make history as the first No. 1 pick from the Pine Tree State. 'It's a really cool feeling, really cool for me to go through and kind of have all the support of Maine behind me,' Flagg told NBC News at the AT&T Flaggship Experience event in New York City ahead of the draft, which begins Wednesday night. Advertisement 'I actually got to go home for a little bit this summer so far, and just seeing all the support and seeing everybody was really good for me, and it's just such a cool feeling knowing that I have the whole state behind me, and it's kind of history that I'm being able to do.' Flagg is from Newport (pop. 3,133), a town 30 minutes west of Bangor, known not for its basketball players but for its natural beauty. And regardless of where he's drafted, Flagg will become just the third person born in Maine to play in the NBA, and the first one to be drafted in 41 years. Illinois and North Carolina currently lead the way with seven No. 1 picks each since the draft began in 1947. 'More than just my family, my village of people back home in Maine and my supporters who have kind of carried me through everything, and my supporters are really important to me and who I am today,' Flagg said. The Dallas Mavericks have the first pick in the draft, but no matter where he ends up, Flagg will remain a Mainer to his core — ordering his lobster rolls chilled with mayo (as opposed to the competing Connecticut version of warm with butter). Advertisement 'I attribute so much to where I come from and it's who I am. That sense of loyalty has always been with me,' he told "TODAY" co-anchor Craig Melvin. 'I think just being able to put on for the state has been something that's been really important to me the whole time, and feeling like I'm representing something bigger than myself.' Maine basketball runs through the Flagg family. Flagg's mother, Kelly Bowman Flagg, played at Nokomis Regional High School, the same school both Cooper and his twin brother, Ace, won a state championship with, and she captained the team at the University of Maine. Cooper's father, Ralph, played at Eastern Maine Community College. Ace currently plays for University of Maine. Kelly Flagg, mother of Duke's Cooper Flagg, at a news conference in San Antonio on April 4. (Jamie Schwaberow / NCAA Photos via Getty Images) He even played against his mother, Kelly, who, as Cooper told Melvin, never let him win … outright. During their last game, Cooper was up 7-6, and Kelly fell, tearing her meniscus. Advertisement 'I count it as a win, because she forfeited, and I was up. But she won't give me the win,' he told Melvin. 'I was winning, so it should count either way.' Cooper's basketball career started with one-on-one games against Ace and older brother Hunter in the family's driveway in Newport. Those games sometimes ended in fistfights. Cooper, now 18 and 6-foot-9, says those games and his upbringing are at the root of his competitive drive. 'They taught us from a young age, and just playing 100% you know, as hard as you can every single time, playing and giving your all to the game. So I think it's kind of how you're raised. And then you kind of get that as you play more more in the driveway, and you just never want to lose to your brothers.' Advertisement According to Ace, Cooper was just like every other shy kid growing up in Maine. 'But when you have a tight-knit community, like we did in Maine, that's when you can really see him open up,' he said. 'We're surrounded by our friends and family, and he really comes out of his shell.' Ace recalls when he and Cooper played in a game at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, a year after they had moved to Florida to finish high school. Their friends, family and members of the community drove three to four hours from Maine, filling up the top section of the bleachers. 'It was the loudest section in the building. So that was incredible to see just support when we hadn't even been able to see most of them for a year at that point, and they still showed complete support.' Flagg has maintained his connection to Maine throughout his career, especially off the court. Last August, he signed with New Balance because of the company's presence in the state, including a manufacturing plant 25 miles from his hometown. 'The connection with New Balance as a family company and a company with Maine roots means a lot to me,' Flagg said at the time. 'That makes this really different and special. My mom used to go to the tent sale for back-to-school shopping there when we were kids. That really aligns the brand with my roots. It's a perfect fit.' Advertisement The AT&T Flaggship Experience leaned into Flagg's ties to Maine in an attempt to connect fans to his entire career — starting in his home state. They featured his jerseys from Nokomis H.S. and AAU team Maine United, displayed photographs and newspaper clips from his time in Maine and branded the activation as the 'Maine Event,' referring to the 'village' of support his mother, Kelly, often refers to. Cooper Flagg (center) with fans at the AT&T Flaggship Experience (Courtesy AT&T) But it's not just Maine that is behind Cooper — the fandom has spread to all of New England. Former Celtics player Brian Scalabrine, now a commentator for the Boston Celtics — said fans throughout the region constantly ask him about Flagg. Advertisement 'The whole state of Maine is behind him. New England is behind him,' Scalabrine told NBC News. 'They love the fact that this kid is out of the middle of nowhere.' Scalabrine notes that Flagg's rise in the game gives hope to young players around the country who are in remote places. 'Every kid, white, Black, a kid from Europe, wherever, is looking at like this kid from the middle of nowhere, and he's becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft,' he said. 'He's giving other people the opportunity to think you can come from anywhere and make it. You can come from the middle of Maine and develop yourself into the No. 1 pick in the draft.' Maine native and Boston Celtics fan James Little, 37, who was at the AT&T event said: 'He has the hopes of the entire state riding on his shoulders. This is one of the biggest things to ever happen for our state in a while.' Portland resident Marisa Veroneau, 43, also at the Flagg event on Monday, noted that even nonbasketball fans are excited about Flagg. 'There is quite a bit of buzz around town, Mainers are excited to see one of our hometown kids at the top of the draft. I expect Maverick jerseys to spike in these parts soon.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
25-06-2025
- Sport
- NBC News
Cooper Flagg is the pride of Maine, and he's psyched to represent it in the NBA
The state of Maine, often associated with breathtaking nature and lobster rolls, is about to be front and center at this year's NBA draft, as Cooper Flagg is expected to make history as the first No. 1 pick from the Pine Tree State. 'It's a really cool feeling, really cool for me to go through and kind of have all the support of Maine behind me,' Flagg told NBC News at the AT&T Flaggship Experience event in New York City ahead of the draft, which begins Wednesday night. 'I actually got to go home for a little bit this summer so far, and just seeing all the support and seeing everybody was really good for me, and it's just such a cool feeling knowing that I have the whole state behind me, and it's kind of history that I'm being able to do.' Flagg is from Newport (pop. 3,133), a town 30 minutes west of Bangor, known not for its basketball players but for its natural beauty. And regardless of where he's drafted, Flagg will become just the third person born in Maine to play in the NBA, and the first one to be drafted in 41 years. Illinois and North Carolina currently lead the way with seven No. 1 picks each since the draft began in 1947. 'More than just my family, my village of people back home in Maine and my supporters who have kind of carried me through everything, and my supporters are really important to me and who I am today,' Flagg said. The Dallas Mavericks have the first pick in the draft, but no matter where he ends up, Flagg will remain a Mainer to his core — ordering his lobster rolls chilled with mayo (as opposed to the competing Connecticut version of warm with butter). Maine basketball runs through the Flagg family. Flagg's mother, Kelly Bowman Flagg, played at Nokomis Regional High School, the same school both Cooper and his twin brother, Ace, won a state championship with, and she captained the team at the University of Maine. Cooper's father, Ralph, played at Eastern Maine Community College. Ace currently plays for University of Maine. Cooper's basketball career started with one-on-one games against Ace and older brother Hunter in the family's driveway in Newport. Those games sometimes ended in fistfights. Cooper, now 18 and 6-foot-9, says those games and his upbringing are at the root of his competitive drive. 'They taught us from a young age, and just playing 100% you know, as hard as you can every single time, playing and giving your all to the game. So I think it's kind of how you're raised. And then you kind of get that as you play more more in the driveway, and you just never want to lose to your brothers.' According to Ace, Cooper was just like every other shy kid growing up in Maine. 'But when you have a tight-knit community, like we did in Maine, that's when you can really see him open up,' he said. 'We're surrounded by our friends and family, and he really comes out of his shell.' Ace recalls when he and Cooper played in a game at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, a year after they had moved to Florida to finish high school. Their friends, family and members of the community drove three to four hours from Maine, filling up the top section of the bleachers. 'It was the loudest section in the building. So that was incredible to see just support when we hadn't even been able to see most of them for a year at that point, and they still showed complete support.' Flagg has maintained his connection to Maine throughout his career, especially off the court. Last August, he signed with New Balance because of the company's presence in the state, including a manufacturing plant 25 miles from his hometown. 'The connection with New Balance as a family company and a company with Maine roots means a lot to me,' Flagg said at the time. 'That makes this really different and special. My mom used to go to the tent sale for back-to-school shopping there when we were kids. That really aligns the brand with my roots. It's a perfect fit.' The AT&T Flaggship Experience leaned into Flagg's ties to Maine in an attempt to connect fans to his entire career — starting in his home state. They featured his jerseys from Nokomis H.S. and AAU team Maine United, displayed photographs and newspaper clips from his time in Maine and branded the activation as the ' Maine Event,' referring to the 'village' of support his mother, Kelly, often refers to. But it's not just Maine that is behind Cooper — the fandom has spread to all of New England. Former Celtics player Brian Scalabrine, now a commentator for the Boston Celtics — said fans throughout the region constantly ask him about Flagg. 'The whole state of Maine is behind him. New England is behind him,' Scalabrine told NBC News. 'They love the fact that this kid is out of the middle of nowhere.' Scalabrine notes that Flagg's rise in the game gives hope to young players around the country who are in remote places. 'Every kid, white, Black, a kid from Europe, wherever, is looking at like this kid from the middle of nowhere, and he's becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft,' he said. 'He's giving other people the opportunity to think you can come from anywhere and make it. You can come from the middle of Maine and develop yourself into the No. 1 pick in the draft.' Maine native and Boston Celtics fan James Little, 37, who was at the AT&T event said: 'He has the hopes of the entire state riding on his shoulders. This is one of the biggest things to ever happen for our state in a while.' Portland resident Marisa Veroneau, 43, also at the Flagg event on Monday, noted that even nonbasketball fans are excited about Flagg. 'There is quite a bit of buzz around town, Mainers are excited to see one of our hometown kids at the top of the draft. I expect Maverick jerseys to spike in these parts soon.'
