Helping Camden Prepare for the Next Hurricane, Flood, or Who Knows What? (Courtesy Mother Nature and Climate Change)
Sep 19, 2023
When we sail, we love to make landfalls. Yet we sailors are not so wild about hurricanes making landfalls here in Camden.
We “escaped” we might say; we might also say, welcome to our new reality. Scientists have told us that the warming of the planet is changing hurricane intensity and paths. Camden is not prepared for the new reality of climate change.
To become climate resilient, Camden needs to:
- Understand Exposure—for property, yes, but also the impact in our daily lives, with uncertainty and anxiety: hurricanes bearing down one day, with a flood watch 2 days later! Camden is living in an unprecedented time. Can we begin to take inventory of these exposures?
- Assess Vulnerability and Risk—what parts of Camden, and who in Camden are most at risk when the big storms, floods, or food scarcity bear down? How can we get the voices of all those who are at risk heard? (You can pass the word about CamdenCAN, help get folks to talk climate— and forward this newsletter, subscribe, attend an event.)
- Investigate Options—do we chose warming centers for the vulnerable in storms, move the fire station, practice emergency flood drills? Camden residents need to chat about these options. Check out the list of 72 community actions, broken into 8 focus areas provided by the good folks behind Maine’s Community Resilience Project. There are lots of ways Camden can start climate work.
- Prioritize and Plan—with so much at stake, what priorities go to the top of the list? Who decides this? We, Camden residents do.
- Take Action—one way to guide this is with a Camden Climate Action Plan. CamdenCAN is hoping we can start working on one of these. Read Belfast’s Climate Action Plan to get inspired.
CamdenCAN invites you to join us on a journey to make Camden climate resilient. We’ve organized Camden Climate Talks for November 16 (“Camden’s Neighbors’ on Climate Action: Tales of Hope and Activism from Belfast to Vinalhaven (and Elsewhere!),” December 7 (“Where Does Camden Stand on Climate Action?”), January 11 and 30th (both focused on specific Camden exposures and dialogue to come to community consensus).
Camden Climate Conversation Circles—This Week and Beyond
This week CamdenCAN starts with a smaller ambition: intimate climate conversation circles. Come to the Picker Room (Camden Public Library) at 1 PM on first and third Thursdays in October to join others concerned about our climate future in small facilitated Conversation Circles. These will be informal, designed to help us get to know one another and find ways to talk about the climate crisis. There’ll be resources for guided discussion (podcasts, articles, and books as decided by each group). The goal is to help one another explore living in this remarkable period. Making connections about climate is a powerful way to build resilience. Free and open to all!
Upcoming CamdenCAN Events
Thursday, 9/21, 1-2:30 pm, CPL: Facilitator Training for Camden Climate Circles. (See description, above.) First week for those willing to learn how to lead future circles.
Thursday, 10/5, 1-2:30 pm, CPL: Camden Climate Conversation Circle. Come join in small group conversations to air thoughts and feelings about living in a time of rapid climate change. These are informal, designed to help us get to know one another and build community resilience.
Thursday, 10/19, 1-2:30 pm, CPL: Camden Climate Conversation Circle (don’t have to have attended previous session). Meet others concerned about climate change; small groups will continue to meet beyond these dates if participants choose to do so. Climate related books, articles, podcasts, and other media may also become subject of conversations.
Other Climate Change Events—Local, In Person
October 5, 5 -7 pm, Steel House South, Rockland: Green Happy Hour Presents Local Climate Action: Pathways to Participation. Suggested donation $3-5 to cover drinks and snacks. FMI call (207) 706-9357.
October 14, 10 am -3 pm, Harbor Park, Rockland: Electrification Expo—ride in an EV, look at electric boats, learn about Ebikes. Find out more at the website link here. (Rain date is October 21.)
Maine Climate Education and Events—Online
- The meeting of the Maine Climate Council is Friday, Sept. 29, starting at 9 a.m. The Council must deliver an updated plan to Governor Janet Mills and the Maine Legislature by Dec. 1, 2024.
Members of the public interested in following the meeting are encouraged to register for the livestream, hosted as a Zoom webinar. Registration for the meeting by clicking: Register Now! Maine Climate Council Livestream - Climate Connections Maine Business Series—ClimateWork Maine brings you a series of webinars to help you design, implement, promote, or fund environmental projects/plans. Have a look and register, here.
- Senator George Mitchell Center for Sustainability Series—remarkable roundup of state leaders sharing what they’ve learned doing climate work. Find the listing of Fall 2023 talks here. Talks held online, Mondays, 3-4 pm.
Upcoming Climate Events Farther Afield
9/20, 7 pm, Reversing Falls Sanctuary, 818 Bagaduce Road, Brooksville. Eco-Spirituality and Climate Change, Letters from the Edge,. Rev. Dr. Andrea Lloyd will explore our climate crisis from the place where spirituality and science overlap—the ecotone. She is co-author of the book Letters from the Ecotone: Ecology, Theology and Climate Change. The book invites readers into a conversation between an ecologist (Lloyd) and a pastor (Nagy-Benson) about life in a time of climate crisis: one that travels from the reality of grief to the imperative of hope to the necessity of collaboration across disciplines and differences. This evening event, which will open with a reading from the book, is an invitation to join that conversation.
10/15, 7 pm, Merrill Auditorium, Portland. Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest. The evening will feature music, poetry, art and advocacy—with a solo acoustic performance by GRAMMY® Award-nominated producer/songwriter/performer Maggie Rogers on the Black Ram guitar, 2022 NPR Tiny Desk Contest winner Alisa Amador, Halcyon String Quartet, a reading by poet Beth Ann Fennelly, as well as appearances by environmental legends Bill McKibben, Terry Tempest Williams, and Rick Bass. See more here.
Concluding Thoughts
How do you ride out a tropical storm? Assess the risk, make a plan, execute. Some of us did ride out last week’s storm on our sailboats: we set a spare anchor; we double-checked lines; we secured what was vulnerable. And we made it through.
That’s what we want for each and every Camden resident as the climate crisis deepens—we want everyone to make it through. Working together, as a community, we can create warming centers for those who lose power; we can find ways to mitigate floodwater damage for those living in floodplains; we can run emergency preparation drills so we know where and how to evacuate. Now is the time to create plans for the next storms, heat waves, food or water shortages—and who knows what else.
Together we CAN weather, adapt, and even mitigate, climate change.
CamdenCAN (ClimateActionNow) is a citizen-led organization committed to reducing Camden’s contribution to climate change through local action, education, advocacy, and resources. We help our community take advantage of climate solutions with actionable steps. Together we CAN make a difference.