Sea Change

Marina Schauffler is a writer whose work is online at naturalchoices.com. She lives in the Midcoast.
Additional Column Posts (1 - 20 of 24) Next Page
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Choosing greener homes
By Marina Schauffler - Oct 05If you haven't lived in an energy-efficient home, you don't know what you're missing. The benefits that green buildings offer – lower operating ...
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Resisting a rollback of emissions standards
By Marina Schauffler - Sep 14As ineffectual as this president appears, his cabinet members are stealthily orchestrating destructive changes. Environmental Protection Agency ...
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Slowing down
By Marina Schauffler - Aug 11“I have struggled all my life with a constitutional impatience with anything that threatens to waste what’s left of my minutes here on earth. I ...
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Safeguarding favorite places — from ourselves
By Marina Schauffler - Jul 14Biking Mount Desert Island’s Park Loop Road over Memorial Day weekend, Friends of Acadia Conservation Director Stephanie Clement witnessed ...
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Drawdown: Exploring climate change solutions
By Marina Schauffler - Jun 17In a month that began with the president’s misguided decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, I was heartened to discover an inspiring ...
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Don't be so sure about personal care products
By Marina Schauffler - May 27“Raise your hand if you’re SURE!” a deodorant ad once proclaimed, playing to widespread insecurities about appearance and body odor. The promise ...
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Succumbing to screens: two-dimensional living
By Marina Schauffler - Apr 28“When our attention is perpetually narrowed onto a small screen, our world shrinks to meet it.” — Nancy Colier, “The Power of Off: The Mindful Way ...
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Mud season solace
By Marina Schauffler - Mar 31I have a bowl of paper whites, Of paper-white narcissus; Their fragrance my whole soul delights, They smell delissus. — E.B. White, “Window Ledge ...
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Bridging chasms: An open letter
By Marina Schauffler - Mar 04After a recent conversation with a self-described “climate agnostic,” I found myself trying to articulate why that was not a tenable stance. I ...
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Eyes wide open
By Marina Schauffler - Jan 26“What education giveth in terms of freedom and opportunity, student debt often taketh away.” – Zac Bissonnette, "Debt-Free U." Too many high ...
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Anticipating climate refugees
By Marina Schauffler - Sep 21At first, all eyes were on Hurricane Harvey. Then attention turned – momentarily – to the wildfires raging out West before riveting on Hurricane ...
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Greener boat storage?
By Marina Schauffler - Aug 25Before long, the recreational boating season will draw to a close and owners will batten down their craft for the winter. Many will choose the ...
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A yes worth seizing
By Marina Schauffler - Jul 28If political turbulence has you feeling sick, the patch you might need is Naomi Klein’s new book, “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock ...
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The great promise of tiny houses
By Marina Schauffler - Jun 30“Life started feeling very much like a double-edged sword – to be working so much to pay for a house we don’t own, are never at, and don’t have ...
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A 'shocking' regression: Sen. Mitchell reflects on ...
By Marina Schauffler - Jun 02A “low point for the American environment,” a “dark and difficult time,” a period when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was in “chaos and ...
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Standing up for energy efficiency
By Marina Schauffler - May 13Ask a dumb question and — contrary to the old adage — you might just get a smart response. Take this question, first posed a quarter-century ago ...
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Three ways to green your household
By Marina Schauffler - Apr 07“It’s not easy being green,” Kermit the Frog bemoaned back in 1970. What was, for a Muppet, a whimsical play on words has become code for the ...
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Politicians at sea
By Marina Schauffler - Mar 10The politics of climate change are starting to resemble the surface of a melting glacier split by crevices. We appear to be at a shear zone, a ...
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Getting brighter about LED bulbs
By Marina Schauffler - Feb 09“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” biologist Barry Commoner wrote in 1971, proposing that as one of four “laws of ecology.” We’ve had ...
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A time for rethinking
By Marina Schauffler - Jan 12“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so ...