September 17, 2019 — All this week, Maine Public – and more than 250 other news outlets all around the world – are reporting stories on climate change as part of the “Covering Climate Now” project. In Maine, scientists say that climate change means hot summers, warm winters, more rain, and less snow, along with a warming gulf of Maine, and that will affect the state’s fisheries, its economy and traditional ways of life.
Professor Ivan Fernandez of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine is one of the authors of the report, “Maine’s Climate Future.” He told Maine Public’s Nora Flaherty that since the findings came out out in 2015, there have been many big changes in the state and globally, including an acceleration in the pace of change.
FERNANDEZ: What we’ve seen in the last five years is, obviously, a continuation – most of the time, evidence of an acceleration of many of the trends for climate change. We’ve also, obviously, lived through a few years where we have hurricanes and fires, and where we’re witnessing the loss of communities and island nations due to these sorts of climate related disasters. And so the I think the public awareness and the mounting evidence of these extreme events has picked up the pace in the last few years.