Climate Change

The conversation on climate change has a new vigor in recent months, thanks in part to the Green New Deal. Though it was voted down in a procedural vote in the U.S. Senate, the non-binding resolution has intensified conversation on climate and yielded climate policy packages from both sides of the aisle: Republican Rep. Max Gaetz’s Green Real Deal and Senator Lamar Alexander’s A New Manhattan Project.

Regulators are taking comments on plans to expand a lucrative new crab fishery that’s stirring interest in the Gulf of Maine.

Jonah crabs are a native species that, until recently, was mainly caught as bycatch – by accident – in lobster pots.

Now, as warming waters push the lobster fishery north, more fishermen – especially in southern New England – are targeting Jonah crabs on purpose to supplement their income.

New Hampshire Fish and Game biologist Josh Carloni says in Northern New England and the Gulf of Maine, lobster is still king – but that could change.

At an annual breakfast Friday in Durham, environmentalists said more federal and local action is needed to slow the effects of climate change.

New Hampshire U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Rep. Chris Pappas both spoke at the event, saying climate change demands a local response but poses a global existential threat.

Pappas says the Trump administration should engage more on the issue with other world powers – such as China and India, both top contributors of carbon emissions.

Students from the Seacoast area participated in Friday’s worldwide Youth Climate Strike, a coordinated event demanding immediate action on climate change.

In Portsmouth’s Market Square, a thick crowd of students from local high schools held up signs, passed around a bullhorn, and called for the end of fossil fuels.

As the climate warms, Americans – and New Englanders – appear to be finding abnormal temperatures less and less remarkable.

New Hampshire drivers may start to notice bumpier roads in this latest thaw after a cold snap – both damage and weather that could happen more often as the climate warms.

Last week's cold snap gives way to much milder temperatures this week.

Climate scientists say it’s all part of a warming trend in New Hampshire – where winters are heating up faster than in most of the rest of the country.

New research shows the state is on the leading edge of an increase in annual low temperatures across the country.  

Last weekend's winter storm caused only moderate flooding on New Hampshire's Seacoast. But it provided a window into how rising seas will make flooding more frequent, bringing challenges to the state's coastal communities.

A new report says sea level rise has already cost New Hampshire more than $15 million in coastal property valuation in recent years.

Researchers from Columbia University and the First Street Foundation, a national nonprofit, analyzed 2.5 million coastal homes in four New England states.

State legislators will consider how to prepare New Hampshire for the effects of climate change this session – including with one bill that would help coastal towns facing rising seas.

Seacoast-area state Senator David Watters spoke at the Seacoast Environmental Film Festival Saturday, after a documentary about sea level rise on the Chesapeake Bay.

Even if countries cut greenhouse gas emissions immediately, New Hampshire will get warmer and wetter within the next three decades, and towns need to plan accordingly.

That was the topic of Nashua's first Resilient Nashua Summit, which the city hosted Tuesday as part of a year-long initative to gather input on its plan for dealing with natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. 

Most wetlands permits issued in New England would not be affected by a proposed change in federal environmental rules.

The Trump administration wants to narrow which wetlands receive federal protection under the Clean Water Act to only those that directly feed navigable waters.

New research suggests New Hampshire forests could help store more climate-warming carbon dioxide while growing higher-value trees.

The study, from Clark University and the Nature Conservancy, says better land management – especially reforestation – could store up to a fifth of America’s climate-warming carbon emissions. 

A new report suggests New Hampshire's Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant will be essential to curbing the effects of climate change in the coming years.

Seabrook and Millstone Station in Connecticut will be the only two nuclear plants left in New England after next year.

They're also some of the most profitable nuclear plants in the country, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

New Hampshire is the only New England state that didn't join a coalition opposing the proposed rollback of the Clean Power Plan.

The EPA wants to replace the Obama-era plan with a rule that loosens carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants.

The Wildcat Mountain ski resort in the White Mountains will have the earliest opening ever in its 61-year history Saturday.

It comes after a mid-October cold snap that bucks the overall warming trend for New England winters.

Wildcat Mountain spokesman Jack Fagone says it's usually not cold enough for snowmaking until closer to Thanksgiving.

That wasn't the case this year – with a recent week of weather in the 20s and lower, as well as a surprising amount of natural snowfall.

A controversial conference in Portsmouth Friday focused on economic solutions to climate change – while questioning some mainstream scientific views. 

The Portsmouth Conference was the first put on by Citizens Count, a nonpartisan voter education nonprofit.

Its founder is prominent New Hampshire businessman Paul Montrone, who sat in on the conference at a hotel in Portsmouth.

Several climate science skeptics from around the world will join a controversial conference in Portsmouth over the next two days.

The event, known as the Portsmouth Conference, lost support from the city and the University of New Hampshire because of its roster of speakers.

Researchers have finished their largest study to date on how ticks and warming winters are hurting moose in Northern New England.

The data shows unprecedented death rates among moose calves -- more than 50 percent in four of the past five years, plus lower reproductive rates in adult moose across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

The New Hampshire Film Festival’s first Virtual Reality Lounge opened Friday in Portsmouth, with four films about climate change.

Dark curtains hung from the walls, dimly lit by black lights. Ten festival-goers took their seats on swivel chairs. They turned in their seats to get a full view of a California wildfire or a desert in Somalia.

A group of New Hampshire legislators and renewable energy advocates issued their response Thursday to the governor’s 10-year energy strategy.

The volunteer coalition wrote plans for how the state can rapidly shrink its carbon footprint—and people’s bills—by investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy and new technologies.

They call it a roadmap to their goal of using renewable power for all of New Hampshire’s electricity by 2040.