New Year’s Day

My tote road – at least I’ve considered it mine

these past twenty-five years.

One December day a sign appeared��

at the end of that road:

American Forest Management it proclaimed.

With trepidation I walked, and the farther I walked,��

more swaths of orange tape were revealed.

A week ago it began.

I talked to the man blocking the road with his huge truck.

Hello, I said, curious neighbor, here. Just wondering…��

He was kind, reassuring, said only forty percent would be logged,��

they’ll bring in a chipper, tidy it all up. Nice and neat, he said.

Then they started. Titanic Tonka toys,��

mammoth circular blades, robotic arms,

the men encased within glass all day,

pushing and pulling levers, saws screaming.

All is calm on New Years.

A foot of snow fell yesterday��

but the work churned on and the road was cleared.

I make my way down the to the field

where stacks and stacks of limbed trees await removal.

The air is pungent with resin,��

bark and branches litter the torn up road.��

I totter among the massive muddy ruts.

They’ve created new roads.��

I follow one up a slight incline, another branches off,��

and then another. It’s true they haven’t clear cut,��

but still I feel like keening. The light dims yet I persist,

tripping now and then over a stump, looking toward the river,��

at the sunset unfurling across the sky,��

crimson and coral, matching the colors��

of the raw wood.��

I still myself. The air is mild, moist.��

All I hear is the rustle of dry beech leaves.��

I seek the moon and there it is, a hazy crescent��

floating in the mauve-stroked horizon.��

I touch a giant white pine��

that – for some reason – was left on its own,

give it a pat, and head for home.

New Year’s Day II (one year later)

We walk together, but apart –��

not much talk. I slow my pace to a stroll��

in order not to overtake until,

at the bottom of the road, he heads for the field

and with a word I turn toward the culvert,

to the stream with its uplifting babble.

I hit my stride and follow the path

we’d made through the rubble,

diverting the orange tape to our purpose,

marking as straight a line as can be managed��

through the destruction.

Soon the river is reached and I am back��

among the giant pines, the needle strewn banks.

I take a deep breath and whistle our whistle

but receive no response. Realizing hearing aids were left behind

I head downstream, trotting along the path and

when he emerges, I bark out a laugh.

I slow to match his step. We crack across thin ice,��

frozen leaves giving us purchase as we make our way��

to a small point where he muses fishing might be good come spring.

Down he sits with a stick he’s picked up and dabbles the water.

I hum a hymn, trying in vain to remember the words��

as he dips for imaginary fish. I announce a further jog upstream –

he says he’s staying put.

Moving along quickly, kicking sticks out of the way,��

bending to shift larger ones, I pause to listen��

as more running brooks shoot off to the side,

and poke at what looks like a large wing��

with a few scraggly feathers still attached.

When I am stopped by a footbridge that runs short,��

I retrace my steps, keeping the river in my periphery,��

for the sun is bouncing off its surface

leaving spots that dance behind.��

I loop back through the ravaged woods – following the daubs��

of orange tape – and where we first parted ways��

I see his bobbing hat ahead. Soon I close the gap and pass.��

“Was it good for you?” I ask and head for home, knowing��

it had to be.

The post A Collection of Poems: New Year’s Day, New Year’s Day II appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Gardens During Rains

Hiding away in the gardens during rains,

a brisk chill with wet pavement invites all,

but only the committed will attend.

Few umbrellas float in the distance

between trees, setting their sails on

expedition slowly, bright colors shaped

like upside down radar dishes of faint

signals, while everyone with logic��

has stayed home in front of fireplace��

and giant television screens.

A woman in parka before me does nothing��

but photograph, a young couple are��

lost in the rose garden, away from��

nosey friends and prying parental eyes.

They skip and sing under one umbrella.

Then there is the odd group who��

actually did not bother to check��

for conditions at all, tip toeing foolishly��

in shorts and sandals, today’s newspaper

draped and soggy over their tan heads

on their way back to their cars, then home.

But I, who takes large rainbooted steps

with sheer bravado, move forward

across the presentation of rare plants

and incredible foliage splayed before me,

all dripping wet and tinted gray due to��

lack of sunshine for the entirety of today.

Ducks float in droplet pebbled pools,

wondering at the rhythmic strides

us humans orchestrate, without tail feather

or bright banded colorful rings

around our own rubber necks.

The snapping turtles have completely

blown the tourist scene in disgust,

tucking back into knobby shells when��

all they wanted was vitamin D��

and a touch of dryness to kiss their heads.

We have paid our admission to be here

amongst one another, coyly grazing across

each others eyesight as if to suggest

a brilliance for taking in all this rain

for the sake of calm and inner piece��

and a communal shared solitude.

The freeways and the hospitals��

that surround us all buzz with��

a heated jolt of static cling that��

burns the bones and makes��

the ground swell with exhaustion.

This spread I stand here before����

in falling rain, these plants and trees

and flowers will have none of that.

They all suck at the muddy grounds,

laughing away and shivering at it all

like it’s happy hour all of a sudden and

unemployment checks have just rolled in.

Nature Consoles

We were all so busy crying,
and then came the rains.��

The dull gray backed whales

of clouds squeeze in.
The freshly saturated concrete��

begins to smell like raisins,��

and footsteps become as gentle

as procession paces.

This town gets another scrub��

behind its ears.
I’ve cherished much of mankind��

but realized I didn’t know everyone.

In my plight to cover grounds,��

I opened up my threshold of sympathy��

to join them all,��

and we started to let go together.��

Sweet nature be the blanket��

as we tremble and cover our eyes��

with visions of mountaintops��

swirled with rich and thick haze.
Roll out your vast and open sea��

of wavering pathways and��

tree finger tunnels gripped tight
and true.��

Nature be the crossing guard,��

though done for the mourning,��

driving off and coming back later��

when school ends, to usher back

across these streets��

the brightened children of nature,��

the sacred young tranquilizers

of tomorrow’s resurrection.

The post A Collection of Poems: Gardens During Rains, Nature Consoles appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Fireflies

Mid-summer, mid-evening the blue-

black night shrouds the self to become

A hidden witness, like the backyard maple

and the forsythia bush, to the nocturnal��

Life emerging from its slumber.�� Again,��

I wait expectantly for the fireflies to return.����

Once constant stars on a cloudless��

night, they danced to an unheard music

Their incandescence blinked their own��

luminous light show. How I long to be��

Part of the glow and again walk

through their fluid constellations

Of delight as though I am touring

a microcosm of the mystery.

Excessive night light has blinded��

the fireflies to see through darkness��

And humans’ ceaseless appetite for��

manicured lawns has poisoned their homes��

To near extinction.�� Now, all I can do is wait

for us to become wild again, to again desire

The flickering field and connection over

the ubiquitous ones pulsing inside our homes.����

Tonight, I will search for a single glowing pulse,��

a beacon, to help find our way back to the stars. ��

Arrival of Spring

Spring will soon arrive yet

will offer stark consolation

In a country whose people reside

with ice in their hearts and dare not

Remove their dark tinted sunglasses��

and be blinded by icy whiteness.

Fires rage in every direction

and no warmth can be found

The planet heats by degrees,

and we apply more sunscreen.

Soon all that will remain from��

the snow melt are puddles��

and memory, but tell that to��

the broken birch and maple limbs.����

Tell that to those who mourn��

the dead – who respond and point

to their hearts.�� Not all wounds��

will heal.�� The scars etched into

The body, into the land cannot��

be hidden by bunting or flags.

End of the World

Surviving heatstroke, he transforms��

Into a god of his own making.����

Blinded, he believes he is Tireseus.����

Burning he believes he is Prometheus.

In his Copernican world he yearns to be��

Both Sun and Oracle.�� Curious acquaintances,��

like planets, orbit with the hope of love,

friendship, or insight but receive only fire.����

The climate heats.�� Fertile ground becomes fallow.����

Parched land cannot feed insatiable hunger.

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Ph.D. Candidate, Ecology and Environmental Sciences

91����

Welcome to the sixth issue of Spire! We are excited to share with you a variety of submissions including photography, poetry, art, and personal stories. We are pleased to announce Rachael Murphy as the winner of our cover art contest. Her art series, ‘Interactions in Maine Landscapes, Woodcut Prints’ combines realistic imagery with abstract patterns to display personal interactions with the Maine landscape. In this issue you will find nature-themed poetry, stunning wild bee photography, one author’s way of storytelling through resilience, and a discussion on capitalism’s role in climate change.

These past two years have been challenging for us all, but I continue to be inspired by Spire’s readers and their dedication to the journal’s vision and mission. Many thanks to editorial board members Paloma Henriques, Logan Kline, Dominic Piacentini, Meaghan Bellavance, Rafa Tasnim, Cheyenne Hebert, and Alexandria Miller for their commitment to Spire and for providing such thorough and thoughtful reviews. Thank you as well to our faculty director Dr. Dan Dixon and to co-editor in chief Clinton Spaulding for your continued support and insight.

It has been an honor to serve as editor in chief for the fifth and sixth issues, but as I complete my PhD it is time to pass the torch. I am delighted to announce that Dominic Piacentini, PhD Candidate in Anthropology and Environmental Policy, will be serving as Spire’s next editor in chief. Dominic has been a member of our editorial board the past two years and I have no doubt that he will do an amazing job continuing Spire’s vision and mission.

All the best,

Rebecca Champagne

Editor in Chief

The post A Letter From the Editor appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Brice the Behemoth�� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ��Honey Hole

����

Coo’s Canyon�� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ��City Forest

����

Artist Statement

My interest in the arts began while looking at paintings by deceased relatives hanging in my grandparents’ home. I would imagine what their meandering thoughts sounded like as they painted. I find inspiration in Janet Dexter Storer’s artwork — who I only know through my grandmother’s stories. She lived and worked in Weld, Maine, capturing its beauty through landscapes. Her most memorable, humorous statement I carry with me is, “It takes two to make a painting: one to paint it and the other to shoot them before they ruin it.” I never see my artistic process as finished, always looking for a new issue to solve or address, yet I keep Janet’s statement in mind as I approach a possible stopping point.

My artwork oscillates between realistic imagery and abstract forms, depending on the chosen media. It is a vehicle for processing personal interactions with the world, simultaneously layered with broader issues and themes. Complex, broken patterns and colors create a larger image or form. This patterning acts as a facade hiding my themes and subjects, like the perfected masks we all seem to wear interacting with the world. This patterning also brings intricate beauty to my subjects that may appear ordinary or mundane.

Brice the Behemoth, 2020, is a record of my summer through encounters with wildlife around Weld, Maine where I spend my summers. This print is a search for positivity during these stressful and uncertain times with the pandemic and climate change weighing on my mind. Interactions with creatures and places fixed my mind in the present. I find myself reflecting on the value of small moments, becoming an observer of my surroundings. Human activity is present in the environment — but not overtaking it completely. Even when nature takes back developed areas, it is never quite the same. The forests��around Webb Lake were once cleared for farmland and housing development. The nearby town of Weld shrunk dramatically as abandoned houses collapsed.��Brice the Behemoth was the start of a larger series tentatively titled Remnants.

Honey Hole, 2021, is a continuation of this dialogue I am developing in this series of prints. The drainage pipe is just outside the center of Weld. The brook that runs through it trickles late in the summer season. I initially assumed nothing could survive in the small pools, but beautiful��wildlife lives just below the surface. Coos Canyon, 2021, depicts a canyon in western Maine that is a popular tourist destination. I consider how foot traffic and bridges spanning the waterway affect the natural behavior of brook trout here. On a quiet, rainy day the fish reveal themselves under the rapids. City Forest, completes this series. I created it after walking the trails in Bangor. In the moment, we are in a beautiful natural environment, but the looming powerlines remind us of the urban shopping centers just beyond the tree line.

These four prints expand out to a broader commentary on humanity’s odd relationship to nature — desiring both connection and control — whether we are aware of these unique interactions or not. Traces of humanity’s impact is present in every environment even if it’s not immediately obvious. We are only visitors until these places become molded to humanity’s needs.

The post Art Series: Interactions in Maine Landscapes, Woodcut Prints appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I think

you should know that the hagfish await,

right whale carcass bobbing for days with

the buoyancy of the ship that struck her,

afloat with last gasps of salty air and

gas from tons of undigested zooplankton

as containers head to port in diesel fogs;

whale’s belly rolls skyward as the sun rises,

summons winds from corners of the Atlantic;

the unreflective ship calmly hosting a wake,

hull as stony and gray as granite island cliffs,

unyielding, not even a sobbing rain to stream

down cheeks of deckhands as paid mourners;

another day, another hit in a vast conspiracy,

the dark slate wings of skates below flapping

like godfathers’ overcoats in seaside winds;

a great white shark delivers prayers and the

whale falls, wailing seabirds depart the mass

and the hagfish get to work, rasping away

evidence of a crime, spineless nervous systems

a few million years older than thought itself,

not pondering the tragedy of huge, stilled heart

and empty jail of skeleton, justice unfulfilled,

docked ship unburdened of our guilty pleasures.

The post The Hagfish Await appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

By Erica Cassidy Dubois

Over the past two years, a property boom has swept through Maine. Contractors and real estate agents had record seasons. Property values soared. Camps, residential homes, and lots that sat on the market for years were suddenly snapped up (Hill, 2022). More than one-third of this activity was driven by buyers from out-of-state (Ogrysko, 2022). For some communities, the influx of new residents brought much-needed population growth and bolstered numbers for schools. As a friend recently told me, “As a builder, I have all the work I can get.”

But there is also a dark side to expansion. Long-time residents of many rural communities are aghast at the pace of change. “All I hear are trucks and bulldozers, all day long,” a landowner in western Maine lamented to me last autumn. A large tract of undeveloped land across the road from his off-the-grid dwelling had been sold; he was hearing the installation of a new road to service waterfront lots. Among Maine communities, the tone of conversations is changing. The question is no longer, How do we grow? Instead, Mainers are asking, How do we slow this down?

Looming in the background of our local drama is the proverbial elephant in the room: climate change.��

Forests are carbon sinks. Through natural functions, they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release. Trees store carbon in their trunks, branches, and root systems; forests also hold carbon beneath the ground as organic and inorganic components of soil. Forest loss, then, is more than an aesthetic problem or a habitat concern—it is a problem for the climate, too.��

A single house lot may seem like a tiny nibble into the Maine woods, but those bites add up. By current estimates, Maine loses 10,000 acres of natural and working lands each year—an area roughly two-thirds the size of Manhattan (New Project Media, 2021). And that figure is projected to grow. Healthy forests, some of our best natural tools for mitigating carbon pollution, are under threat.

In Maine, one of the best ways to retain woodlands is to keep forests affordable to own and to maintain their value to landowners as a source of income. The act of cutting down a tree is not, from a climate perspective, condemnable. Land that is managed for forest products—and sometimes the products themselves—will continue to be a carbon sink, long-term. The problem arises when forested land is permanently converted to another, more intensive use.�� In Maine, it takes decades to grow a tree to harvestable size. The margins for owning, managing, and harvesting timber and other forests products are thin.

There are a number of options a landowner might consider to help fund the cost of owning land. Carbon credit programs to avoid or offset emissions are of growing interest in Maine. When a landowner enrolls in one of these programs, the amount of standing carbon on their property is carefully measured and quantified. An agreement for how much standing carbon will be maintained and sometimes accumulate over a fixed term is negotiated. Landowners receive financial compensation when credits are sold on a carbon market, often purchased by companies to “offset” carbon-generating activities. Forest growth is audited over the length of the contract to ensure that the terms of the agreement are met. One credit represents a reduction in one metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions. As more carbon is stored on the land, more credits can be sold. Carbon credit programs may involve planting trees, which removes carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere, or the preservation of existing forests, which forestalls greenhouse gas emissions from being released.

There are concerns, raised by environmentalists and others, about the efficacy of carbon credit programs to reduce emissions. Some worry that sale of credits provides a smokescreen for polluting companies and industries to declare certain activities “carbon neutral” without clear evidence that credits sold actually reduce global emissions. Projects that buy and sell carbon credits based on forest preservation, for example, only make a measurable impact if the forests preserved were under threat of being cut down (Pearce, 2021). Some researchers suggest that offset programs have overestimated how much carbon is stored in enrolled forests (Badgley, 2021). Despite these criticisms, large environmental organizations such as Conservation International continue to tout carbon credit programs as a means of reducing carbon pollution, provided that buyers of credits are also working to reduce their carbon emissions in other ways. Projects must also meet standards for equity and have their benefits rigorously verified (Conservation International, 2022). One of the largest conservation organizations in the world, The Nature Conservancy, has embraced the sale of credits to help fund forest conservation (Pearce, 2021).

Carbon credit programs have been mainly accessible to large landowners who manage thousands of acres, but there is growing interest in creating programs tailored to bring benefits to smaller landowners as well. One strategy that has been proposed in Maine is to expand existing Current Use programs to encourage and support landowners who wish to sequester carbon by reducing the assessed value of their property. There are presently four Current Use programs accessible to landowners in Maine: Farmland, Tree Growth, Working Waterfront, and Open Space. The Tree Growth designation offers the largest reduction in value. For landowners with ten or more operable acres, enrolling can reduce property tax bills by 90%. But not every small landowner wants to manage their lands for commercial timber, and Tree Growth legally requires landowners to maintain a forest management plan prepared by a paid professional forester, and for periodic harvests—ideally, every ten years—to take place on their land.��

An by the Governor’s Task Force on the Creation of a Carbon Program suggests increasing the tax credit for Open Space from 20 to 50% of a property’s taxable value, and adding an additional 20% break for forested properties of at least ten acres that are managed explicitly for carbon storage. Although the overall tax benefits of Tree Growth would remain greater, a Carbon Management program could appeal to landowners who do not want to actively manage their lands for timber or engage in regular harvests for commercial products. At the end of the day, the goal of Current Use tax programs is to retain and preserve the resources sustained by natural and working lands. In order to be effective, it is essential that these programs be attractive to a wide range of landowners with a variety of management visions and goals. Many small landowners may not want to see a processor-forwarder at intervals in their backyard. A Carbon Management program, as proposed, could reduce the tax burden for these types of landowners. The impacts of such a program have the potential to be significant. Some 40% of Maine forests are owned by small private landowners—nearly seven times the amount of land owned and managed by public (state and federal) agencies (Mullany, 2018).��

A tried and true method for sustaining forests is permanent conservation. When we hear the word “conservation,” many of us think of state or federal lands—Acadia National Park, for example, or state-owned parks and reserves like Lily Bay, Bradbury Mountain, Donnell Pond, and the Cutler Coast. In reality, the majority of permanently conserved lands in Maine are retained in private ownership but overlaid by conservation easements—permanent legal agreements that prohibit development by transferring rights to qualified holders such as land trusts and state agencies. Sixty percent of the four million acres of conserved lands in Maine are held in working forest easements. These lands continue to be harvested for timber and other products, but will never be converted into camps, “kingdom lots” (large parcels carved out of undeveloped tracts and sold for high value to build vacation homes), or other types of development. Lands held in will quietly continue to store carbon in perpetuity.

“Easements have made conservation possible in the Maine woods at a landscape scale,” says Karin R. Tilberg, President/CEO of the , a land trust that has been a part of conserving more than one million acres (2021). “We would not see the level of conservation that has been achieved in Maine, today, without easements as a tool.” She points out that landowners who want to avoid selling off land for development may look at easements as an alternate source of funds. “Some landowners will take the money they make from the sale of an easement and use that to buy more forestland,” she explains. “Or they might use it to invest in types of management—such as pre-commercial thinning—that will ultimately result in a healthier, more valuable forest” (2021).

Not every landowner is prepared to enter into a permanent easement. The largest conservation program in the United States is the (CSP), a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. CSP provides financial assistance and professional support for landowners of working lands, such as forests and farms, to maintain or improve strategies for conserving natural resources. CSP currently runs on a five-year contract period (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2022). While programs like CSP do not offer the same level of assurance as permanent easements in keeping lands from being developed, they do important work to enhance or restore wildlife habitat and improve water quality and soil productivity.

Another form of conservation that is too often overlooked is Indigenous ownership and management. A global study published in 2019 concluded that the greatest levels of biodiversity occur on lands managed or co-managed by Indigenous communities, exceeding that of parks and wildlife reserves (University of British Colombia, 2019). Research has also shown that Indigenous people worldwide are likely to be disproportionately impacted by climate change effects (Ford, 2012). In Maine, Indigenous Wabanaki tribes have access to less than 1% of the lands that once supported their people and cultures (Sharon, 2020). A large opportunity exists to address climate impacts, improve environmental health, and protect vulnerable communities by facilitating Indigenous ownership and management of land. In 2020, when the Elliotsville Foundation, Inc. returned 735 acres to the Penobscot Indian Nation, EFI President Lucas St. Clair expressed his desire for other Maine landowners to follow suit. “I think that this could potentially inspire others to give land back to the Wabanaki Confederacy,” , “and my hope is it’s really just the beginning” (Sharon, 2020). Tribes employ foresters and other natural resources professionals who actively manage their lands for timber, wildlife, and other resources. They are also interested in storing carbon. In 2014, Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe became the first tribe in the Eastern U.S. to enter trust lands into a carbon offset project. Nearly 100,000 acres were involved in the 100-year agreement. In 2016, the tribe was recognized by the Climate Action Reserve, an offset registry, for generating 3.2 million credits—more than any other lands in CAR’s registry that year (French, 2017). Proceeds from the sale of credits are used by the tribe to support tribally owned businesses, public health initiatives, and more (Drummond Woodsum, 2017).

Moving forward, commercial forestry in Maine is likely to employ a combination of conservation and management strategies in order to satisfy climate-minded investors while also producing a financial return. In 2020, the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) of more than 9,000 acres in Downeast Maine to be managed under their , which NEFF hopes will become the “new gold standard” for sustainable management of forests (New England Forestry Foundation, 2021). With time, the goal is to grow bigger, higher value trees which—in combination with more income sources like carbon credits and conservation easements—will produce at least as much income for investors and owners as traditional commercial harvests.

There are challenges to this approach. Most land managers must meet demands from investors to generate returns within 10 to 15 years (Rankin, 2018). Investors in an Exemplary Forestry model must be much more patient in order to see a similar return. There is also the question of marketability. Sit in a room of forestland managers, and you are likely to hear how “mills don’t want big trees.” Advances in computer imaging technology have made modern mills incredibly efficient. Each log is scanned and measured. Calculations are made automatically by a software program, and then the tree is cut in order to maximize value to the mill (Rankin, 2011). Big trees can slow down this process. I have heard experienced forestland managers state that the ideal stem size for a milled spruce or fir sawlog in Maine is currently only 8 inches in diameter. That’s a marked decrease from 50 years ago, when a red or white spruce sawlog might be harvested at a diameter of 18 to 20 inches (Frank, 1973). This economic reality forces landowners and managers to adopt shorter growing and harvesting rotations. Landowners and foresters may tell you that their hands are tied—even if they prefer to grow older, bigger trees, waiting 80 to 100 years to harvest may result in a product that mills do not want to buy. Proponents of Exemplary Forestry counter that there will always be a market for the highest value products, like veneer. They hope that Exemplary Forestry will attract a new kind of investor, one with an eye towards philanthropy and deliberate, sustainable growth. Over time, they argue, Exemplary Forestry will increase the financial value of forestlands as well as improve the health of our environment. And the sale of conservation easements, soon after acquisition, is one way to provide investors with an immediate financial return (Rankin, 2018).

A robust forest products’ economy is also important for maintaining forests. In order for landowners to make money selling wood, they need access to mills. There must be enough equipment operators to perform the harvests, and log truck drivers to move wood from point A to point B. A landowner is only one cog in the engine of the forest economy. If one gear gets rusty or breaks, it can wreak havoc on the entire machine. For example, the widespread closure of Maine paper mills created a dramatic drop in demand for hardwood pulp (Mullany, 2018). With no market available for certain sizes and species of trees, many landowners had to halt or slow their investments in pre-commercial thinning—a silvicultural technique that thins out dense, young forests and allows remaining trees to grow at a faster rate. This means less money for landowners now in pulpwood sales, and less money in the future as they will have to wait longer to be able to grow and harvest merchantable wood. When markets fail, landowners have to make choices. If a landowner finds themselves strapped for cash, selling land for development may be the best financial choice they can make. As Mainers, as a whole, continue to age, selling lands to fund retirement plans or long-term care may further drive the pace of sales and subdivisions.

“As Mainers, as a whole, continue to age, selling lands to fund retirement plans or long-term care may further drive the pace of sales and subdivisions.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role in the uptick of land sales and development in Maine. Two of the country’s largest moving companies, U-Haul and United Van Lines, recently listed Maine as one of top “move-in” destinations for 2021 (Van Allen, 2022). Flight from urban areas heavily impacted by COVID-19 and the advent of more options to work remotely are gasoline on a fire that was already smoldering as people in the U.S. push north and east fleeing droughts, fires, mega-storms, flooding, heat waves, and other effects of global climate change (Ropiek, 2021, Schauffler, 2021). Ironically, one of Maine’s best assets for absorbing atmospheric carbon—our forests—are being chipped away as more and more people move to the state.

The reaction to this challenge cannot be “no development.” Such a stance would be impractical and impossible to achieve. As noted at the beginning of this essay, many Maine communities are happy to welcome new residents to help bolster their tax base, grow their workforce, and fill the halls of their schools. Thoughtful development, coupled with appropriate conservation, however, should be forefront in the minds of city managers, municipal planners, and local and state officials as Maine attempts to adjust to real estate demands.��

The most intensive use of land occurs when every home is plotted on one to five acres (Brody, 2013). There are many who might prefer the way this kind of sprawl looks, compared to an urban setting. But, in reality, single family homes constructed in this pattern gobble up land, strain municipal infrastructure, and destroy habitat for most kinds of wildlife. A better alternative is to encourage rural “clusters” of homes while retaining large patches of conserved green and forested space. Even better is to continue to support the revitalization of Maine downtowns and encourage new and existing residents to occupy smaller dwellings closer to their workplaces, reducing commuting times and emissions.

Globally, forests absorb up to one-third of the annual carbon pollution that humans release by burning fossil fuels (International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 2021). But forests cannot do their job if they are converted to development, which is happening worldwide at a rate of nearly 25 million acres per year (Organization of the United Nations, 2020). Not all this loss is due to home development. Conversion of forests to agricultural land is a large contributor. Otherwise “green” initiatives such as the installation of solar farms also play a role. In Maine, though, forest conversion is driven mainly by residential and second-home development.

Last November, at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, 114 global leaders pledged to halt or reverse deforestation in their home countries (Forde, 2021). Together, these nations—which include Australia, Brazil, China, Russia, the European Union, and the U.S.—represent 85% of the planet’s remaining forests. The emphasized the need for more forest conservation and financial incentives for sustainable forestry, as well as the need to support Indigenous rights (2021).��

When we hear about forests as a carbon sink, “we often think of the famous and well-known places such as the Amazon rainforests,” the Forest Society of Maine’s Karin Tilberg wrote in a letter featured in the Portland Press Herald (2021), reflecting on the outcome of the Glasgow conference, “But Maine forests are part of the solution, too.”

More than agree that climate change is a serious problem (Stacker, 2021). Studies have shown that the Gulf of Maine is warming at a rate 2.5 times faster than the global average for oceans—a change that will affect everything from fisheries to snow fall to the intensity of storms (Gulf of Maine Research Institute, 2021). As Mainers seek to mitigate the effects of carbon pollution, we must recognize that our forests are far more valuable to our collective climate future than the price that they can fetch on the market today.

Bibliography

Badgley, Grayson, Jeremy Freeman, Joseph J. Hamman, Barbara Haya, Anna T. Trugman, William R.L. Anderegg, and Danny Cullenward. “Systematic over-crediting in California’s forest carbon offsets program.” Global Change Biology 28 no. 4 (April 2021): 1433-1445. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.28.441870.

Banks, John, Adam Bishop, Jerry Bley, Cathy Breen, John Bryant, Patrick Corey, Hugh Cowperthwaite, Lee Dassler, Jim Douglas, Tim Glidden, Julia Harper, Dennis Keschl, Don Kleiner, Alex Koch, Janet McMahon, Austin Muir, Liz Petruska, Nancy Smith, Alison Sucy, Wolfe Tone, David Trahan, and Chris Winstead. “Shaping the Next Generation of Land Conservation in Maine: Final Report from the Maine Land Conservation Task Force.” (2019). https://www.maineconservationtaskforce.com/.

Brody, Samuel. Nature Education Knowledge Project. “The Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences of Sprawling Development Patterns in the United States.” Accessed February 1, 2022. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-characteristics-causes-and-consequences-of-sprawling-103014747/.

Conservation International. “Carbon Credits: Protecting Forests, Climate, and Communities.” Accessed February 1, 2022. https://www.conservation.org/projects/carbon-credits#:~:text=The%20idea%20behind%20a%20forest,revenue%20being%20paid%20to%20local.

Drummond Woodsum, Attorneys at Law. “Passamaquoddy Tribe Closes Major Carbon Credit Sale.” News, December 12, 2017. https://dwmlaw.com/passamaquoddy-tribe-closes-major-carbon-credit-sale/.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “The State of the World’s Forests 2020.” Last modified December 23, 2020. https://www.fao.org/state-of-forests/en/.

Ford, James D. “Indigenous Health and Climate Change.” American Journal of Public Health 102 no. 7 (July 2012): 1260-1266. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477984/.

Forde, Amy. “World Leaders Pledge to End Deforestation by 2030.” Irish Farmers Journal, November 3, 2021. https://www.farmersjournal.ie/world-leaders-pledge-to-end-deforestation-by-2030-658495.

Frank, Robert M. and John C. Bjorkbom. “A Silvicultural Guide for Spruce-Fir in the Northeast.” United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service Northeast Forest Experiment Station General Technical Report (1973). fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/gtr/gtr_ne6.pdf.

French, Edward. “Tribal forest project helps slow climate change, generates revenue.” The Quoddy Tides, May 12, 2017. http://quoddytides.com/tribal-forest-projec-helps-slow-climate-change-generates-revenue5-12-2017.html.

Gulf of Maine Research Institute. “Gulf of Maine Warming Update: Summer 2021.” Last modified October 26, 2021. https://www.gmri.org/stories/gulf-of-maine-warming-update-summer-2021/.

Hill, Madeline. “Real Estate Sales Up 2.41 Percent in 2021; Prices Up 16.8 Percent.” Maine Association of Realtors, January 2, 2022. https://www.mainerealtors.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/MaineHousingReport-December21.pdf.

International Union for the Conservation of Nature. “Forests and Climate Change.” Last modified February 17, 2021. https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/forests-and-climate-change#:~:text=Approximately%202.6%20billion%20tonnes%20of,absorbed%20by%20forests%20every%20year.

Mullany, Gary, Ernest Bowling, and David Stevens. “Maine Wood Volume and Project Study.” James W. Sewall Company Report (May 21, 2018). http://formaine.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ME_Wood_Supply_FIA_Analysis_FINAL.pdf.

New England Forestry Foundation. “Neff Completes Downeast Conservation Project with 9,150 Acres Protected.” Into the Woods, June 30, 2021. https://newenglandforestry.org/2020/12/23/neff-protects-9150-maine-acres/.

Ogrysko, Nicole. “Maine home prices were up nearly 17% in 2021, another record-breaking year.” Maine Public, January 20, 2022. https://www.mainepublic.org/business-and-economy/2022-01-20/maine-home-prices-were-up-nearly-17-in-2021-another-record-breaking-year.

Pearce, Fred. “Is the ‘Legacy’ Carbon Credit Market a Climate Plus or Just Hype?” Yale Environment360, March 9, 2021. https://e360.yale.edu/features/is-the-legacy-carbon-credit-market-a-climate-plus-or-just-hype.

Rankin, Joe. “Exemplary Forestry: A New Paradigm for the Northeast’s Woodlands?” Forests for Maine’s Future, May 22, 2018. https://mainetree.org/2018/05/exemplary-forestry-a-new-paradigm-for-the-northeasts-woodlan-html/.

Rankin, Joe. “The Modern Sawmill: A High-Tech marvel.” Forests for Maine’s Future, December 21, 2011. https://mainetree.org/2011/12/the-modern-sawmill-a-high-tech-marvel-html/.

Ropeik, Annie. “Americans Are Moving to Escape Climate Impacts. Towns Expect More to Come.” NPR News, January 22, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/956904171/americans-are-moving-to-escape-climate-impacts-towns-expect-more-to-come.

Saffier, Jo D. “Governor’s Task Force on the Creation of a Forest Carbon Program: Final Report.” State of Maine Task Force on Climate Change, October 29, 2021. https://www.maine.gov/future/sites/maine.gov.future/files/inline-files/MaineForestCarbonTaskForce_FinalReport.pdf.

Schauffler, Marina. “Fleeing to Maine from Climate Disasters.” The Maine Monitor, December 24, 2021. https://www.themainemonitor.org/fleeing-to-maine-from-climate-disasters/.

Sharon, Susan. “Elliotsville Foundation Returns 735 Acres to Penobscots.” Maine Public, October 30, 2020. https://www.mainepublic.org/environment-and-outdoors/2020-10-30/elliotsville-foundation-returns-735-acres-to-penobscots.

Stacker. “Counties Most Concerned about Climate Change in Maine.” Stacker, September 2, 2021. https://stacker.com/maine/counties-most-concerned-about-climate-change-maine.

Tilberg, Karin R. “Maine Voices: Our State’s Forests Are a Vital Part of Our World’s Climate Solution.” Portland Press Herald, December 2, 2021. https://www.pressherald.com/2021/12/03/maine-voices-our-states-forests-are-a-vital-part-of-our-worlds-climate-solution/#:~:text=December%203%2C%202021-,Maine%20Voices%3A%20Our%20state’s%20forests%20are%20a%20vital,of%20our%20world’s%20climate%20solution&text=One%20significant%20outcome%20was%20the,or%20reverse%20deforestation%20by%202030.��

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University of British Columbia. “Biodiversity highest on Indigenous-managed lands.” ScienceDaily, July 31, 2019. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190731102157.htm.

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Conservation Stewardship Program: Learn More.” Accessed February 4, 2022. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/national/programs/financial/csp/?cid=nrcseprd1288524.

Van Allen, Peter. 2022. “More Evidence That Maine Has Become a Move-in Destination.” Mainebiz, January 4, 2022. https://www.mainebiz.biz/article/more-evidence-that-maine-has-become-a-move-in-destination.

“With the Right Incentives, Maine’s Forest Landowners Could Be the next Big Carbon Offset Players.” New Project Media, January 29, 2021. https://newprojectmedia.com/news/n2xofmixkd3ucyu78goycebmq4fh8a.

The post Worth More than Market Value appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Artist Statement

In the late summer of 2020, I had a relapse of a severe disk herniation that effectively rendered me immobile. In the first month of recovery, I would spend mornings in my bed watching out the window as nuthatches cached food in our trees and chickadees squabbled over sunflower seeds. When I was able to walk in small bursts, photographing our backyard’s over-wintering flocks helped me strengthen my spine while I appreciated the nuances of bird behavior. By December 2020, I could walk regularly up and down the bike trail near my home, sleuthing for and photographing birds as they flitted about their territories. Immersing myself in Maine’s natural wildlife was healing physically and emotionally; I am forever tethered to the sometimes ferocious, often goofy birds I photographed on my walks. This collection of photos includes a sampling of native Maine birds I was lucky to spend time with as I recovered.

American Robin, Orono, October 2020

An American Robin (Turdus migratorius) fluffs its feathers to insulate from the cold.

Black-capped Chickadee on Sumac, Orono, December 2020

A Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) perches on the Sumac (Rhus spp.) it was previously pecking.

Herring Gull, Bar Harbor, March 2021

A Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) eyes the photographer as it roosts on a bitterly cold day.

Savannah Sparrow, Old Town, May 2021

A Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis) takes a break foraging for insects and spiders.

The post Art Series: Healing with Birds appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Inequity is a choice that we make as a global society through the economic systems that we hold up as legitimate. We currently have the capacity and resources to meet the basic needs of all human beings on the planet (Binder et al. 2020), but the neoliberal capitalism that privileges growth over well-being has entrapped us into a profoundly unequal system, where, continuing the legacy of colonial conquest, some lives are valued more than others (Oliver-Smith 2016; Marino and Faas 2020; Marino and Ribot 2012; Haverkamp 2021). The global poor lack the resources to meet basic needs, eroding their capacity to engage in the political power building that is necessary to advocate for their rights, and become trapped in cycles of survival (Singer et al 2016; Ribot 2013). To increase resilience to a changing climate – as well as to benefit from the many sources of knowledge production needed to mitigate the climate crisis – lower threshold policies like basic income and job guarantees, as well as access to affordable healthcare, housing, high-quality food, and education, are needed to free the poor from survival mode and empower them to enter the political arena as agents of change. I will outline how minimum economic thresholds could lead to increased resilience and decreased vulnerability due to greater access to resources, how this will lead to increased access to power and decision making and thus adaptive capacity, and finally, how the politics of who gets to produce knowledge shapes policy outcomes (Fabinyi et al. 2021).��

Mainstream vulnerability analyses tend to focus on who is vulnerable rather than examining why they are vulnerable. In this way, the analyses are “defanged” and made “palatable” and apolitical (Marino and Faas 2020, p. 36). Critiquing mainstream vulnerability analyses, Erikson (2015, p. 524) writes, “much research on climate change vulnerability continues to situate vulnerability within analyses of climate, rather than in societies and political economies.” To get to the roots of why people are poor and thus labeled vulnerable, “we need to address the […] huge imbalances in power” (Oliver-Smith 2016, p. 81). Marino and Faas (2020, p. 35) name these root causes: “the long arcs of colonialism, development, global capitalism and modernity,” advocating for a novel view of vulnerability. Rather than focusing on the vulnerable-ized populations (the poor), they ask, “which systems of relations are most vulnerable to using, or have used, the blunt force of power to eliminate alternative ways of proceeding? Which systems of relations, which assemblages of actors, ideas, and materials are vulnerable to outcomes borne of oppression?” (Marino and Faas 2020, p. 42). These questions turn the mainstream view of vulnerability on its head, directing focus away from the outcome of inequality towards the source.��

Access to resources begets access to power and decision making. If everyone were to be provided with the necessities of life, including food, water, shelter, and healthcare, they would have increased capacity to organize for clean air and water and to protect our natural “life support systems” (Earle 2009). As Mortreux and Barnett (2017, p. 7) explain, “people have a limited capacity to worry such that increases in worry about one issue in life will lead to a decrease in worry about other issues.” If people are worried about meeting their basic needs, their capacity to deal with all other issues is compromised. Ribot (2013) asserts that “to tilt decision making in favor of the poor will require systematic representation of poor and marginal voices in climate decision-making processes” (p. 176).

As we come to accept that we will be living with a certain amount of climate change no matter the actions we take now, the ability to deal with that change, or adaptive capacity, has come into focus. Eriksen (2015) posits that “what counts as ‘adaptive’ is always political and contested” (p. 523), with social inequalities being the most important factor (Singer et al. 2016). In fact, “[s]ome forms of adaptation may impoverish people and build very powerful systems of negative resilience” (Tanner et al. 2015, p. 25). Resilience itself is a value-neutral concept, and undesirable states (for instance, ocean dead zones) can be incredibly resilient. Policies aimed at adaptation imposed from outside the communities they intend to serve can have unintended negative consequences. Agrawal and Lemos (2015) “propose ‘adaptive development’ as a form of development that mitigates risks without negatively influencing the well-being of human subjects and ecosystems” (p. 186). Moving deeper, transformational policies “replac[e] established political regimes with new rights compacts” (Haverkamp 2021, p. 3). Reformists may argue that “incremental improvements in livelihoods and small shifts in power relations can have transformative developmental benefits for future generations” (Tanner et al. 2015, p. 25), but it is also argued that “incremental adaptation […] is insufficient for survival under global climate change” (Haverkamp 2021, p. 3).��

The fundamental questions of power – who benefits, who loses, “who decides, and on the basis of what value systems” (Tanner et al. 2015, p. 23), and who and what value systems are left out – are important to examine with any proposed policy (Fabinyi et al. 2021; Nightengale et al. 2020). The inclusion of traditional, local, and indigenous knowledges (Ford et al. 2016) in decision making ensures that the best decisions will be made with all the available information (Eriksen et al. 2015). Leaving these ways of knowledge production out of policymaking impoverishes the results and leads to actions with limited scope and potentially disastrous consequences. “Difference opens the door to ways of thinking, imagining and being that are outside of one’s own cultural frame […], offering real alternatives to climate change solutions that are born from the same logics that created the climate crisis (i.e. colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy and Enlightenment rationality)” (Haverkamp 2021, p. 9). These logics can also produce “entrenchment,” where “adaptation projects aggravate political, socio-economic, or cultural inequalities and the disempowerment of disadvantaged groups [including] favouring concentration of wealth” (Sovacool et al. 2015). Likewise, “IPCC authors will endorse a small set of storylines” (Inman 2011, p. 9). This limiting of the narratives around possible future outcomes does a disservice to the diverse imaginings from which new ways of being can arise.

Indigenous worldviews are critical to informing climate science and policy. While – and perhaps because of – being “sensitive to climate change impacts, their accumulated knowledge can help to better understand the challenges posed by climate change and how to respond” (Ford et al. 2016). However, this knowledge is often distilled into data points for use in Western science settings. Goldman et al. (2016, p. 27) critique the “distilling of complex knowledge practices into information for the purposes of integration.” This type of use can lead to loss of richness and context. “Dynamic indigenous interest groups and their communities of origin are central to constructing vital strategies to protect the future. These should be respectful of the past, but even more respectful of these groups’ potential for agency in the future” (Eisenstadt and West 2017, p. 55). Climate negotiations will be strengthened when indigenous leaders are upheld as important and knowledgeable voices and respected as representatives of sovereign nations.��

“Funding guides science; thus, more equitably distributing global wealth also more equitably distributes global knowledge production and policymaking.”

Who has the money, and consequently the power, often dictates which forms of knowledge are prioritized. Funding guides science; thus, more equitably distributing global wealth also more equitably distributes global knowledge production and policymaking. Castree (2017, p. 165) describes money as a “globally recognized language” that is “able to powerfully communicate ‘messages’ about all manner of human preferences, wishes and desires” and takes the shape of�� “ taxes, loans, incentives, specialized investment funds and so on.” It could also be said to be expressed as what research is prioritized through funding (Cruikshank 2012). Barron (2018) calls for transparency around funding, and Lahsen (2013) notes the influence of federal agency funding on the type of science that gets recognized.��

Fundamentally, “[c]limate change is redistribution […] As redistribution, climate change is also a matter of justice – it is about who gains and who loses as change occurs and as interventions to moderate change unfold” (Marino and Ribot 2012, p. 323). In order to address these issues of power and open up all possibilities for transformation, it is vital that we as a global society decide that everyone’s basic needs must be met. “Equity is not an outcome achieved once and for all, but must be an ongoing process” (Marino and Ribot 2012, p. 324) – and one that will need to be consistently renegotiated. It is time for policies that ensure a baseline income so that all humans have access to food, water, shelter, and healthcare and are thus freed to participate in imagining and shaping the future, without the urgency of survival in the forefront of their efforts. Whitington (2017) asks, “Who would we polluting, unequal humans become if emissions were halved or even eliminated?” (p. 52). If we all had the resources that would allow us the luxury of contemplating this question and promoting our answers, our collective response would be more equitable, just, and importantly, effective.��

Bibliography

Agrawal, A., and Lemos, M. (2015). Adaptive Development. Nature Climate Change, 5, 185–87.

Barron, A. R. (2018). Time to refine key climate policy models. Nature Climate Change, 8, 350—352

Binder, S., Holdahl, E., Trinh, L., and Smith, J. H. (2020). Humanity’s Fundamental Environmental Limits. Human Ecology, 48(2), 235–44.

Castree, N. (2017). Speaking for the ‘people disciplines’: Global change science and its’ human dimensions. The Anthropocene Review,�� 4(3), 160—182

Cruikshank, J. (2012). Are Glaciers ‘Good to Think With’? Recognizing Indigenous Environmental Knowledge. Anthropological Forum, 22(3), 239—250��

Earle, S. (2009). My wish: protect our oceans. TED: ideas worth spreading. https://www.ted.com/talks/sylvia_earle_my_wish_protect_our_oceans?language=en

Eisenstadt, T. A. and Jones West, K. (2017). Indigenous Belief Systems, Science and Resource Extraction: Climate Change Attitudes in Ecuador. Global Environmental Politics, 17(1), 40—58

Eriksen, S. H., Nightengale, A.J., Eakin, H. (2015). Reframing Adaptation: The political nature of climate change adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 35, 523—533.������

Fabinyi, M., Evans, L., and Foale, S.J. (2014). Social-Ecological Systems, Social Diversity, and Power: Insights from Anthropology and Political Ecology. Ecology and Society, 19(4), 28.��

Ford, J. D., Cameron, L., Rubis, J., Maillet, M., Nakashima, D., Cunsolo Willox, A., Pearce, T. (2016). Including indigenous knowledge and experience in IPCC assessment reports. Nature Climate Change, 6, 349—353

Goldman, M. J., Daly, M., Lovell, E.J. (2016). Exploring multiple ontologies of drought in agro-pastoral regions of Northern Tanzania: a topological approach. Area, 48(1), 27–33

Haverkamp, J. (2021). Collaborative Survival and the Politics of Livability: Towards Adaptation Otherwise. World Development, 137, 105152.

Lahsen, M. (2013). Anatomy of Dissent: A Cultural Analysis of Climate Skepticism. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(6), 732—753.��

Inman, M. (2011). Opening the future. Nature Climate Change, 1, 7–9.��

Marino, E. K. and Faas, A.J. (2020). Is Vulnerability an Outdated Concept? After Subjects and Spaces. Annals of Anthropological Practice, 44(1), 33–46.

Marino, E. K., and Ribot, J. (2012). Special Issue Introduction: Adding insult to injury: Climate change and the inequities of climate intervention. Global Environmental Change, 22, 323—328

Mortreux, C., and Barnett, J. (2017). “Adaptive Capacity: Exploring the Research Frontier.” Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Climate change, 8(4).

Nightingale, A. J., Eriksen, S., Taylor, M., Forsyth, T., Pelling, M., Newsham, A., Boyd, E., Brown, K., Harvey, B., Jones, L., Bezner Kerr, R., Mehta, L., Naess, L.O., Ockwell, D., Scoones, I., Tanner, T., and Whitfield, S. (2019). “Beyond Technical Fixes: climate solutions and the great derangement”. Climate and Development, 12(4), 343—352.

Oliver-Smith, A. (2016). “Disaster Risk Reduction and Applied Anthropology.” Annals of Anthropological Practice, 40(1), 73–85.

Ribot, J. (2013). “Vulnerability does not just fall from the sky: Toward multi-scale pro-poor climate policy”. In Redclift, M.R. and Grasso, M. (Eds.), Handbook on Climate Change and Human Security (p. 164 – 199), Edward Elgar Publishing.��

Singer, M., Hasemann, J., and Raynor, A. (2016). “‘I Feel Suffocated:’ Understandings of Climate Change in an Inner City Heat Island.” Medical Anthropology, 35(6), 453–463.

Sovacool, B. K., Linnér, B.-O., and Goodsite, M. (2015). “The political economy of climate adaptation.” Nature Climate Change, 5, 616—618.����

Tanner, T., Lewis, D., Wrathall, D., Bronen, R., Cradock-Henry, N., Huq, S., Lawless, C., Nawrotzki, R., Prasad, V., Rahman, Md. A., Alaniz, R., King, K., McNamara, K., Nadiruzzaman, Md., Henly-Shepard, S., and Thomalla, F. (2015). “Livelihood Resilience in the Face of Climate Change.” Nature Climate Change, 5(1), 23–26.

Whitington, J. (2014). “Carbon as a metric of the human”. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 39(1), 46—63.

The post Embracing Limits II: A Case for Minimum Economic Thresholds to Mitigate the Global Climate, Biodiversity, and Equity Crises appeared first on The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability.

Capitalism’s demand for continuous economic growth is driving the climate and biodiversity crises, while continuing the legacy of colonialist exploitation. Efforts to reduce emissions linked to cycles of consumption and production are increasing; however, there are great opposing forces. While the affluent continue amassing wealth and power, changing the system will continue to be extremely difficult. New policies, like taxes on wealth, income, and inheritance, maximum wealth or income, and maximum pay ratios, are needed to erode this opposing force. While a minimum wage has been implemented in many countries, the idea of a maximum wage is still peripheral (Alfredsson et al. 2018; Monbiot 2012). Pay ratios, the ratio of the top-earning employee of a business to the average worker, have ballooned rapidly – from 20:1 in 1965 to 320:1 in 2019 – in the 350 biggest U.S. companies (Melin 2021). Embracing upper limits as well as lower thresholds is a necessary step in the process of dismantling the entrenched power structures that not only consume resources and emit greenhouse gases disproportionately, but exert undue cultural and political influence, overwhelming efforts to mitigate ecological and social crises (Alfredsson et al. 2018; Weidmann et al. 2020).

When I’ve asked natural scientists what they see as the main driver of climate change, the answer I almost always get is the increasing human population of Earth. Though a growing human population is currently unsustainable and demands major restructuring of resource allocation, this view often leaves out variations in power, politics, affluence, and the attending emissions within that extremely unequal population. Rosa and Dietz (2012) demonstrate that population stress on the environment is not only related to the size and rate of increase, but also to consumption, which rises with affluence. In other words, economic growth has “positive” (increasing) “effects on emissions” (Li and Lin 2015, p. 1119). Numerically, “…the world’s top 10% of income earners are responsible for between 25 and 43% of environmental impact. In contrast, the world’s bottom 10% income earners exert only around 3–5% of environmental impact” (Weidmann et al. 2020, p. 3). This inequality manifests in different ways depending on how emissions are accounted for – by production, by consumption, or by profit (Hoornweg et al. 2011) – and the ways that we account for emissions shapes the narrative and politics of our response to climate change (Knox 2014).��

In accounting for emissions, boundaries are created, dissolved, and redefined. Boundaries of space and time factor in to where responsibility lies; developed countries have benefited from the sources of emissions since the Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s, and production and consumption are often separated by thousands of miles through global supply chains (Raupach et al. 2007, p. 10292; Asafu-Adjaye et al. 2015, p. 17). Davis and Caldeira (2010) write that 23% of emissions in 2004 were created in countries where they were not consumed, predominantly “the export of emissions embodied in goods from China to consumers in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe” (p. 5688), thus continuing the movement of net benefits towards developed nations. If accounting for consumption, “the Global North is responsible for 92% of emissions in excess of the planetary boundary (Hickel and Hallegate 2021, p. 3). This “metabolic rift,” or separation of costs and benefits, is seen at a more local scale when examining the rural natural resources that ultimately enable dense urban centers to exist (Rosa and Dietz 2012; Hoornweg et al. 2011). When tracing emissions back to those that consume or benefit from them, we see that affluence, often as a legacy of colonialist conquest (Patel 2017; Isenhour 2016), is driving the climate crisis, and in turn, the poor are most often the ones suffering the consequences (Hoornweg et al. 2011; Hickel and Hallegate 2021; Isenhour 2016).��

Grunewald et al. (2017) modeled the relationship of emissions to inequality and found that while in low- and middle-income countries, higher income inequality corresponds to lower emissions (due to many people living in pre-industrial conditions and energy poverty), in generally higher income countries like the U.S., higher inequality is correlated with higher emissions. Grunewald et al. (2017) posits that “in more equal societies, it is easier to arrive at a social consensus on environmental policies and the relative power of groups that benefit from emissions (e.g. owners of capital) is weaker” (pg. #). Weidmann et al. (2020) explains that not only do the affluent drive emissions through consumption, but also “as members of powerful factions of the capitalist class [and] through driving consumption norms across the population” (p. 3). The wealthy influence politics through lobbying (the type where money changes hands directly or indirectly) and have created codependent relationships with governments, propping up politicians and powering think tanks with innocuous sounding names like Americans for Prosperity in exchange for government subsidies (Fouquet 2016; Hertel-Fernandez et al. 2018; Weidmann et al. 2020).��

Globally, the fossil fuel industry was subsidized U.S.$4.6 trillion in 2013, accounting for 6% of global GDP (Fouquet 2016, p. 3). In the U.S., the 2013 sum was U.S.$606 billion, 3.75% of the U.S. GDP (Fouquet 2016). Fouquet (2016) argues that this long-standing monetary support creates a path dependency, or lock-in, on fossil fuels that could take decades or centuries to undo. While fossil fuel companies are protected by government subsidies, they present a formidable obstacle to the transition to a renewable energy economy. We have seen their facades crack in the recent exposure of Exxon Mobil and other fossil fuel companies’ campaigns to obscure and cast doubt on climate science (Tabuchi 2021), but their government handouts keep coming in, they will stay artificially strong.�� Monbiot (2012, p. 272) wrote an exposé discussing how American billionaires are promoting population growth as a crisis that could compromise business, nature and society. This depoliticized conceptualization of population is not just a function of scientific silos but can also be used as an active political tool of the rich to deflect attention away from their role in the climate crisis.��

Even economists at the World Bank admit that “[i]t is obvious today that democratic processes are threatened by excessive wealth differences” (Hickel and Hallegatte 2021, p. 9). In conversation with Hallegatte, Hickel (2021, p. 6) references the Washington Consensus – an effort of wealthy nations in the Global North to dismantle attempts in the Global South to form alternative economic systems broadly based around socialism, “economic sovereignty[,] and global justice”. In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007), Naomi Klein details a series of political and social upheavals in South American that were opportunistically targeted for economic intervention. These upheavals were often instigated by countries of the Global North and were a political opening to introduce free market capitalism as a means of economic control and wealth accumulation. The affluent also lead by example. Celebrity worship and emulation of Western culture create a desire for increased consumption throughout the world (Weidmann et al. 2020). Consumerism is promoted through media and advertisements (Alfredsson et al. 2018) – this is not a passive influence, but rather an active and calculated influence designed for profit.��

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models different scenarios based on different levels of future emissions; however, all Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) are predicated on continual economic growth (Hickel and Hallegate 2021), and “maintain a significant disparity in per capita energy use between the Global North and the Global South” (Hickel et al. 2021, p.768). Even SSP 1, the lowest emission scenario considered, is predicated on “green growth,” the idea that emissions can theoretically de-couple from economic growth given the right technological interventions (Rogelj et al. 2018, p. 325). In analyzing each SSP, Rogelj et al. (2018) conclude that “[a]chieving pronounced emission reductions requires a transformation of the global economy” (p. 327). Kate Raworth’s donut economic model creates a powerful visual for the needed transformation – a new economy with not just lower bounds but upper bounds as well, based on the natural capacity of the Earth (Weidmann et al. 2020). Within the bounds of the economic and atmospheric commons, emissions must be budgeted for, and to do that fairly, wealth needs to be redistributed (Alfredsson et al. 2018; Hickel and Hallegate 2021). Even An Ecomodernist Manifesto (Asafu-Adjaye et al. 2015), in addition to advocating technological fixes, admits the need for changes in “social, economic and political institutions” (p. 29). Weidmann et al. (2020, p. 8) makes the case for “taxation policies, basic income, and job guarantees,”�� “expanding public services” on the lower bounds, and “setting maximum income levels and rolling back neoliberal reforms (e.g. as part of a Green New Deal)” on the upper bounds. These upper and lower limits work together to make a more equitable and sustainable society.

“… instead of taxing the rich, what if we outlawed the rich? What if the kind of wealth and associated power and influence that the one percent currently holds, became, instead of a desirable dream, socially unacceptable?”

There are movements in the U.S. Congress to tax the rich, institute a Universal Basic Income, and create an alternative accounting system to the Gross Domestic Product – the Genuine Progress Indicator (Talberth 2021). But instead of taxing the rich, what if we outlawed the rich? What if the kind of wealth and associated power and influence that the one percent currently holds became, instead of a desirable dream, socially unacceptable? Fouquet (2016) explains the infrequent “critical junctures,” or opportunities, for interrupting path dependence, such as during initial industrialization or Klein’s shocks (Klein 2007). The COVID-19 pandemic presents one such juncture in which new ideas, campaigns, and legislation have the potential to take hold. Implementing limits on wealth is more urgent now than ever. Though concepts like a maximum income or pay ratio may seem wild or impossible, as Patel (2017) observes, “the outrageous [can] quickly [become] normal” (p. 60).��

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