SCENARIO:
By the end of 2023, effects from climate change, which have been increasingly more disruptive over the last five years, began to significantly impact the lives and careers of those in northern and Downeast Maine. Aroostook County had just experienced the driest summer on record, easily surpassing the previous record.  

 

In the beginning of that year, the federal government worked to increase carbon pricing nationwide to encourage forest carbon projects. The state government in Maine created a program to increase the state’s percentage of forested land from 89% to 92.3% by 2030 and included generous incentives for landholders to reforest or delay some forestry projects.  

 

The Gulf of Maine continued to be one of the fastest warming bodies of water on the planet, and average temperatures increased by almost 0.5 degrees from 2021 to 2023. Ironically, the drastic cold snap of early November 2023 caused a record 1,545 sea turtles to wash up on the beach, unable to escape the rapid water cooling. This brought national attention to the record warming in the Gulf of Maine, and additional government funding to identify ways to adapt to these changes. Local aquaculture companies welcome the additional interest and investment but are concerned that it may lead to even tighter restrictions on lobster and shellfish catch.  

 

The wild blueberry fields of Down East Maine continue to warm faster than other areas in the state. So far, this small but important temperature difference has not resulted in the record droughts experienced in other parts of the state, but farmers in the area are beginning to increase mitigation efforts, including adding wood mulch to more of their fields and improving and expanding irrigation systems. Although the fields of Downeast Maine were warming, many other agricultural areas around the United States were experiencing even worse changes. California droughts and wildfires continued to bankrupt or otherwise displace major farming operations, and farms in the Midwest struggled through increasingly destructive summer storms and intermittent droughts. Some large agricultural conglomerates began looking at possible locations in Downeast Maine to move some corn production and in Aroostook County for soybean production.