One of the Tents Behind Trader Joe’s, 87 Marginal Way Scheduled to be Removed on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
Portland Climate Action Team Table at the City’s Earth Day Celebration in Payson Park, Portland. It Ran from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm.
The homeless, set up in a tent village behind Trader Joe’s, 87 Marginal Way, have been told that their village will be removed from the city’s public land on Thursday morning, April 27. “We were supposed to leave last Thursday, but the city extended the deadline to next week,” one of the homeless members of the village told mhn.com this morning.
In the meantime, the city provided large garbage bags to the village members so they could assist in the cleanup of the area. They have been busy filling them with debris although they ran out of city provided garbage bags. Piles of filled garbage bags dot the landscape behind the popular grocery store. For more background information on this situation, please visit post herein dated April 17, 2023.
Portland’s Earth Day was well-attended despite the cool temperatures and cloudy skies. Vendors spanned a variety of interests – from a political group recommending socialism as an alternative to capitalism to cure our climate issues to the Portland Climate Action Team (PCAT) that was formed by the Sierra Club, Maine in 2015.
PCAT is currently focused on strengthening the city’s tree ordinance, the production of educational material about climate change for 4th graders and on the city’s “Electrify Everything” campaign. The non-profit meets monthly on Zoom. For more information on how to get involved with this group, please contacdt Liz Parsons at ecparsons33@hotmail.com The group meets 6 – 7:30 pm the 4th Thursday of the month.
Later in the day a group of environmental activists marched from Monument Square to City Hall for a rally urging care for Mother Earth as well as changes to current policies. Noela Altvater, a Wabanaki, told the crowd that: “We need to ensure we are taking care of Mother Earth as a whole. In order to have a safe and sound environment for crops and harvest, sustainable water, and the healthy growing of natural medicines, the environment needs to come first. We need to ensure that the things we are putting back into nature are biodegradable, recyclable or reusable and most importantly not causing any harm to animals or land.”
Liliana Sapiel, a Passamaquoddy and Penobscot, spoke on behalf of USM’s Student Alliance of Indigenous Peoples. “……our values and teaching have taught us to protect everything within our environment, the animals, people and the earth. We are the movement. We are the change that we want to see in the world. As protectors of Mother Earth it is importnat to have our views listened to and to be respected. My people have been living on this land for thousands of years. We have perservered through colonization, genocide and forced sterilizations, but we are still here. Just like Mother Earth we are strong, perservering and we won’t back down. Not to the fossil fuel industries, not to the government and not to capitalist greed.”
“Getting rid of Central Maine Power” at the ballot box on November 7 was the message of a representative of the non-profit “Our Power.” CMP must go and be replaced by a privately-operated, nonprofit, consuer-owned utility controlled by a board, the majority of whose members are elected she urged. For a full text of the November ballot question, please visit ourpowermaine.org/citizen-initiative.
Adam Campbell, of North Haven, carried a large flag with a replica of Mother Earth emblazened on its blue background.. “Oysters are one of the best foods to combat climate change,” he said leaving the Earth Day event on the steps of Portland’s city hall. “They can filter 50 gallons of water a day and sequester carbon from the ocean.” Campbell owns the North Haven Oyster Company which is the third oldest oyster farm in Maine. It dates back to 1999. One of his customers is the popular oyster house, “The Shop, on Washington Avenue. “I was 5 years old when the first Earth Day happened. That was in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. I thought we had it all figured out then, but here I am again today,” Adam said.
Governor Janet T. Mills (D) issued a statement in recognition of Earth Day in which she quoted the late Maine Senator Ed Muskie calling for an “environmental revolution.” Fifty-three years ago, he told a crowd of 30,000 people at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia: “We are not powerless to accomplish this change, but we are powerless as a people if we wait for someone else to do it for us.”