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Solar energy in Maine has grown seven-fold in the last few years. These projects are bringing enormous benefits to Mainers, including helping cash-strapped businesses and towns save money on electricity bills. We know more solar is needed to meet our climate goals, and it’s necessary to help buffer against the price spikes we’re experiencing from dirty oil and gas. Climate & Clean Energy Senior Advocate Rebecca Schultz joins the podcast to tell us what else we need to know.

The Bottle Bill is a big part of Maine’s culture and environmental ethic. It’s also our most effective recycling and litter prevention program. And hundreds of Mainers have built their lives and small businesses around bottle redemption. But in the 45 years since it began a lot has changed. NRCM’s Sarah Nichols joins the podcast to talk about improvements that are needed to strengthen the Bottle Bill and make it more efficient.

In celebration of National Poetry Month we rebroadcast a powerful poetry reading and discussion that former host Carly Peruccio had with Maine-based poet Richard Blanco for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. In March of this year, Blanco was awarded with the National Humanities Medal by President Biden at the White House. We hope by rebroadcasting our conversation with Blanco we have given our listeners space to reflect and rest among the very busy legislative session and lives we all lead.

Trails are part of what define the Maine experience. Although Maine currently has wonderful trails for hiking, biking, skiing, snowmobiling, commuting, and other uses, many of our trails are in serious need of repair and maintenance. The Maine Trails Bond would be the State-funded grant program dedicated specifically to supporting trail development and maintenance. Outdoor accessibility specialist Enock Glidden and NRCM Advocacy Director Pete Didisheim speak about the importance of trails to Maine and the remarkable coalition of more than 260 businesses, towns, and groups that coalesced to support the proposal for a Maine Trails Bond.

The snow is melting, roads are getting muddier, and amphibians are on the move! We speak with University of Maine graduate student and 2022 Brookie Award winner Greg LeClair about amphibians in Maine, and in particular the annual spring migration they take to get to breeding habitat. Greg founded Maine Big Night, a community science project to collect data and research on road-crossing amphibians across Maine, that has engaged more than 400 volunteers across 300 survey sites.

For the first time in two decades, the chiefs of the tribes in Maine appeared before a special joint session of the Legislature on March 16, 2023, for the Wabanaki Nations’ State of the Tribes address. In this episode, we give listeners an opportunity to hear the full remarks of the five chiefs during this historic moment. One of NRCM’s top priorities is to stand alongside the Wabanaki people as they work toward the State of Maine recognizing the inherent sovereignty of Wabanaki people in their homelands.

More than 100,000 heat pumps have been installed by Mainers and every day more are installed. Without a doubt, heat pumps are a runaway success story for Maine, making our state an incredible example for the rest of the nation. We speak with Andy Meyer, Senior Program Manager at Efficiency Maine, about this exciting transition in how we heat and cool our homes, and why Maine’s love of heat pumps is attracting national attention. Andy also shared tips on how to optimize performance of your heat pumps.

Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby might be Maine’s most famous Mainer you’ve never heard of, but a new statue unveiled in Augusta this week aims to educate more people about her legacy. Fly Rod was a skilled fly fisher and big promoter of Maine in the 1800s who became the state’s first Registered Maine Guide. Maine Master Guide Roger Lambert and Brent West, Executive Director of the High Peaks Alliance, discuss Fly Rod’s enormous legacy and why it remains so relevant today.

Our new CEO Rebeccah Sanders has been on the job a little over a week and has hit the ground running, drawing on her two decades of executive nonprofit management experience in community-driven conservation work and her long-time love of Maine’s great outdoors. What has Rebeccah learned so far, and what is she looking forward to in the future for NRCM and Maine’s environment? Tune in to hear it all in her own words.

Bonus episode! On January 24, 2023, the Natural Resources Council of Maine joined with Senator Mark Lawrence, labor leaders, and conservation partners to announce a bill to boost floating offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine.

The State House in Augusta is once again bustling with activity, and NRCM’s experts have been hard at work identifying our top priorities for the 2023 legislative session that will protect Maine’s climate, water, wildlife, and outdoors. Advocacy Director Pete Didisheim joins the podcast to highlight some of the top environmental issues and bills we’ll be tracking in the upcoming legislative session, and offers tips on how to keep up-to-date.

Scientist, educator, and author John Waldman discusses how we can restore Maine’s rivers and the great fish migrations to which they were once home. Waldman’s talk was originally delivered at an online webinar NRCM hosted in December as part of our ongoing effort to support a free-flowing Kennebec River and bring back millions of sea-run fish, including endangered Atlantic salmon. To view the webinar, including Waldman’s slides, visit: https://youtu.be/2NSU2oHLQMQ

It has been an exciting year marked by big accomplishments for Maine’s environment at the State House and beyond. Advocacy Director Pete Didisheim joins the podcast to highlight 10 areas of progress from 2022 that inspired and energized us. We hope our listeners enjoy these good news stories and it leaves you rejuvenated heading into the new year as we continue our collective work to protect what we love.

NRCM Rising guest host Kate Shambaugh interviews 2020 Brookie Award winner Gabby Hillyer about her experience as part of the University of Maine delegation to the COP27 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt that was help in mid-November 2022.

On Tuesday November 8th, Maine voters delivered another bipartisan, pro-environment majority to the State House. What do those election results mean for our collective work to protect the nature of Maine? NRCM’s Interim CEO and Advocacy Director Pete Didisheim joins the podcast to provide our initial analysis of what the results of this year’s state and federal election means for Maine’s environment. For a more in-depth review of the election’s impact on our environment, join Pete for a Zoom webinar on November 15th by RSVP’ing at nrcm.org.

Every year, NRCM honors environmental leaders in Maine with our Conservation Leadership Awards. The speeches recipients give at our annual event are full of heart, passion, and commitment. In this episode, you’ll hear the inspirational stories of this year's five CLA recipients: Project Puffin's Dr. Steve Kress, Portland & So. Portland sustainability leads Troy Moon and Julie Rosenbach, aquafarm activists Frenchman Bay United, rockweed advocate Dr. Robin Hadlock Seeley, and Juniper Hill "close the loophole" coalition Don’t Waste ME.

Maine’s spectacular outdoors are central to our way of life, and nowhere is that more evident than in the state’s booming outdoor recreation industry. Outdoor recreation contributes $3 billion to Maine’s economy, making up 3.3%—more than double the national average in 2020. In this episode, Colin speaks with Jenny Kordick, the Executive Director of Maine Outdoor Brands, about what makes Maine’s outdoor industry unique, and what we learned from the inaugural Maine Outdoor Economy Summit held in mid-October.

On September 29th, hundreds of Mainers gathered on the banks of the Androscoggin River in Lewiston to honor some of Maine’s 100 Clean Water Champions and celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act. We spoke with a few of the Champions for this podcast episode and asked them to share their unique connection to clean water in Maine. Together, these interviews provide a snapshot into the passion and dedication of everyday Mainers to protect the clean water that makes our state so special.

In this episode, Colin speaks with two Maine residents who live in completely different parts of the state but share a common threat facing the clean water where they live. Robin Hadlock Seeley worked to share information with residents in Pembroke to pass an ordinance banning Wolfden’s mining activities, and MaryAlice Mowry has been shining a light on Wolfden’s sketchy activities in the Patten area near Pickett Mountain where Wolfden has proposed a mining operation.

More Mainers than ever are driving electric vehicles, and more models are coming to market every year. In this episode, we speak with NRCM Climate & Clean Energy Outreach Coordinator Josh Caldwell to discuss what we learned from NRCM’s 2022 survey of every electric vehicle owner in Maine. This was our third and most popular survey—with a record-breaking 1,230 responses from all 16 counties!