Love Your Air

Clean Air in Maine

by Aimee Dodge
4/23/2010

Air quality has become a concern to many in recent years.

The following are some links on air quality that you should can check out:

• http://www.environmentmaine.org/clean-air

• http://www.environmentmaine.org/reports/clean-air/clean-air-program-reports/danger-in-the-air-unhealthy-levels-of-air-pollution-in-2003

• http://www.environmentmaine.org/legislature/testimony/clean-air/clean-air/l_r_-2527
• http://www.environmentmaine.org/legislature/testimony/clean-air/clean-air/ld-615-standards-for-automobile-emissions
• http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/regulations/proposed.htm
• http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/regulations/docs/123fctsht.pdf
• http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/ba101350cde255eb85257359003f5338/af95df412b4c8e64852570e4007a89a6!OpenDocument
• http://www.nrcm.org/project_cleanair.asp
• http://www.catf.us/
• http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/lev4me/index.html
• http://www.umaine.edu/waterresearch/news/pdfs/Clean%20Air%20Act%20Reduces%20Acid%20Rain%20Jan.%2003.pdf

Oh, What Fun Sports Can Be...

Kenduskeag River Race

By Aimee Dodge
4/17/2010

The 44th annual Kenduskeag River Race took place today, starting at 8:30 a.m. Although the sky was over cast and the temperature chilling, 479 boats made their way from Kenduskeag Village to downtown Bangor, 16.5 miles total.

889 people took to the river, ranging in ages from twelve to seventy. The race was completed first by Trevor Maclean, clocking a time of 2 hours, 19 minutes, 5 seconds. He received a canoe shaped plaque to commemorate his trip down the river. Although finishing first is exciting, most of the excitement today was located at the infamous Six Mile Falls. Every year countless numbers lose the river race to the rapids located there and this year was no exception. While watching the boats go through the falls, at least a quarter of them got dumped into the 40 degree water. People on shore clapped for those who made it through and cheered for those who didn’t.
Although the largest crowd for the event was gathered around Six Mile Falls, there were spectators all along the river. In the small parks along the river, closer to downtown Bangor, people had set up lawn chairs and in some cases portable grills to watch and celebrate the race. Another spot where people gathered were the portage points, points during the race where participants were required to take their boat out of the water and move it via land downstream to avoid particularly dangerous parts of the river. Spectators stood around and watched as cold and tired paddlers hauled their crafts out of the river and carried them up steep inclines and across roads.
Even though the weather was less than favorable for water activities and the river was low, both participant and spectators had a good time. The race, overall, had a good turnout this year.

Start Your Social Media Engines!

The Effects of Social Media
By Aimee Dodge

Social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Wikapedia, and Flickr are changing the way disaster situations are received and handled. They have played a major role in disaster response efforts over the past decade. Social media outlets allow people and organizations access to niche audience and enable multinational corporations to engage with employees in ways that have never been possible before.

Within hours of an earthquake striking Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, social networking sites were forming groups to support those effected. The New York Times created a Facebook page and Twitter account just to cover the news and current happenings in Haiti. The New York Times is only one of many news sources that created social networking accounts to get information out to more people. Through the use of social media networks, organizations not only succeeded in engaging and informing people, they also succeeded in mobilizing them. Eight days after the earthquake donors had contributed more than $355 million to aid Haiti through 35 U.S. nonprofit groups, according to Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The ability to instigate action is one of the most important aspects of social media. With the ability to make a single donation in one single rapid movement, social media promotes impulse donating. People are no longer left wondering how they can help because today’s social media and networking makes it easier than ever. All one has to do is send a text message or follow a link to a fund raising page to make a donation. Mailing donation requests is not a reliable means of reaching people. The majority of donations made to the relief effort in Haiti were made via the web.

Social media allows people to create communities and start movements. The day after the Haiti earthquake multiple Facebook groups had been formed to help Haiti, many having more than 100,000 members. People also used their Facebook accounts to let their friends know that they had donated to the relief effort and where they could go if they wanted to donate as well.