Climate Driven: Kennebec County

David Armistead, associate head of school at John Bapst and AP psychology teacher, works from an office at his Bangor home.

How state employees are showing the climate benefits of remote work

Murray Carpenter

Mainers drive more than 15 billion miles a year, and transportation is the state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. But working remotely can reduce those numbers. And state employees are offering a test case of how much of an impact remote work can have.

A grave dug for a green burial at the Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery in Fayette, Maine in January 2023. It's about 30 inches deep and pine boughs are laid in and alongside the grave. No concrete vault, steel or rare wood casket, or embalming chemicals are used at this cemetery.

Climate Desk

Death has a big carbon footprint. Maine’s first conservation cemetery offers an alternative

Esta Pratt-Kielley

The Kennebec Land Trust recently opened a conservation cemetery in Fayette that offers green burials – combining the climate-friendly burial process with land conservation. Green burial is growing in popularity in New England and nationwide as more people consider their carbon footprint in their daily lives – and long after they’re gone.

Electrical technology students Beau Clark and Caleb Cosand dismantle panels at the Capital Area Technical Center in Augusta.

Climate Desk

Maine needs more electricians to meet its climate goals. Training them will be a challenge

Carol Bousquet

As more Maine residents install heat pumps and solar panels, the demand grows for licensed electricians. That's reflected in the climate plan of Gov. Janet Mills, which includes a goal of doubling the clean energy workforce from 14,500 workers to 30,000 workers by the end of the decade. But one major challenge in the push to build the state's clean energy workforce is how long it will take to train them all.