Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions

Speaker: Anthony Charles, School of the Environment and School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia Co-sponsored by the School of Marine Sciences Place-based communities the world over face local environmental threats, whether from industrial activity, resource depletion, pollution, climate change, urbanization or other causes. In response, many communities are acting as stewards of their local environments and resources, undertaking conservation initiatives that help secure local livelihoods, and contribute to larger-scale environmental improvement. However, the considerable conservation successes of…

Speaker: Karin Limburg, Professor, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry

The Politics of a Sustainable Coast: Money, Science, Democracy, and Climate in Southeastern Louisiana Speaker: Michael A. Haedicke, Associate Professor, Drake Co-sponsors: Dept. of Sociology, Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center Given its low elevation and high rate of subsidence, coastal Louisiana is particularly vulnerable to the projected effects of climate change. This presentation will examine Louisiana’s Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, an ambitious effort to increase the region’s resilience in the face of change through large-scale restoration of coastal…

Speaker: Tony Grassi Tony will talk about sustainability in practice as he and his wife Sally rehabilitated an old mill in Freedom Maine, restored hydropower at the old dam and helped in the revitalization of the Village of Freedom. His talk will include the complications, pitfalls and rewards of investing in sustainability. Tony Grassi received his BA in economics at Princeton and his MBA at Harvard Business School. After three years in the army, he worked in corporate finance at…

The Puzzle of Making the Local Food Movement Sustainable: The Challenge of the Supply Chain UMaine Food to Institution Team Speakers: Mark Haggerty, Linda Silka, Stephanie Welcomer, Melissa Ladenheim and Michaela Murray Some of the most important questions facing the local food movement in Maine relate to sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. One solution has been to promote a farm-to-institution (F2I) movement whereby farmers sell their produce to local institutions such as universities and hospitals, and reduce environmental costs and…

Speakers: Afton Hupper, Taylor Lange, Tim Waring, Local Food Lab, UMaine Sustainable solutions are not always win-win. The hardest sustainability challenges are social dilemmas in which the best outcome for individuals (e.g. more comfortable lifestyle) conflicts with the best outcome for the group (e.g. avoiding overuse of environmental resources and natural disasters). But social dilemmas can be solved when individuals cooperate. We study the role of cooperation in Maine’s growing local food system. We use cooperation science, experiments, simulations, and…