Charles H. Norchi is the Benjamin Thompson Professor of Law, director of the Center for Oceans & Coastal Law, and a faculty member of the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine. He teaches International Law, Oceans Law and Policy, International Human Rights, Maritime Law and Arctic Law, Science, and Policy. His research interests are public international law, Arctic law and climate change, international law of the sea, and policy sciences.
Professor Norchi has served as chair of the Admiralty and Maritime Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS), the Fulbright-Ministry of Foreign Affairs Arctic Scholar in Iceland, as visiting professor at City University of Hong Kong School of Law and at Peking University School of Law, as human rights fellow at Harvard Law School, as research fellow in the Center for Public Leadership in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and as Myres S. McDougal Fellow at Yale Law School. He is co-chair of the Arctic Futures Institute, a member of the American Polar Society, and serves on the Boards of the World Affairs Council of Maine, the Harvard Club in Maine, Journal of the North Atlantic and Arctic, and the International Association of Maritime Port Executives (IAMPE). He is a contributing editor of Global Geneva, and a fellow of the Explorers Club, the Royal Geographic Society, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also the current president of the Society of Policy Scientists.
Professor Norchi holds an AB from Harvard College, a JD from Case Western Reserve University Law School, and an LLM and a JSD from Yale Law School.
Bits & Pieces | Ben Lowry
Last Friday, with Vice President Bruce Jones presiding in the place of President Bob Martin, Portland Rotary welcomed 36 members via Zoom. The pre-meeting banter was lively and interesting, with Dick Hall being spotted in a winter jacket and blaze orange hat in his not-yet-thawed office near Rangeley while Bill Blount connected from his airport hotel room in Portugal, still uncertain as to whether he'd need a negative COVID test for his upcoming flights back to the USA. It was also great to see Bob Traill on the call.
After Bruce called the meeting to order, David Small gave us a brief moment of inspiration based upon the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, where we are all hopeful to visit with family, friends and loved ones and, of course, overeat on turkey, stuffing and pies.
Patty Byers reminded us that November is "Foundation Month" with a short video highlighting many of the benefits brought about from our international efforts within the foundation. The message of "health and hope" will be the focus of the month-long effort and, in that spirit, we will all get to read about one area of focus each week in our Windjammer, with this past week's write-up on our longstanding and very successful effort to eradicate polio worldwide. The Earth now has just two nations that are not yet polio-free, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and with all of our efforts, we can be assured that we can bring the vaccines to these countries very, very soon. With that in mind, Patty discussed the newest District 7780 effort, called the "Polio-Plus Society", wherein members can commit to donating $100 per year, or $10 per month to help fund our final push. An e-mail has been sent to all members with an attachment for easy sign-up.
After Patty's words of inspiration, District Governor Dick Hall made note that Patty herself has pledged $1000 to this new initiative. Great job, Patty...and all who help this amazing cause.
John Thompson was next to the virtual podium, speaking on behalf of himself and Bob Clark, as co-chairs of the Youth Services Committee. With all of our Interact club members from Baxter Academy graduating this past spring, our club was looking for a new group of high school students who may wish to get involved in doing the good deeds envisioned by Rotary. By serendipity, an in-school advisor from Casco Bay High Schoolreached out to our club for help with the Interact Club at their school. The club has an existing relationship with the Portland Sunrise Club but, due to dwindling numbers at that club, we have been asked to work in conjuncture with their efforts in gaining momentum for the high school group. John attended a meeting last week and was met with great enthusiasm by the students and faculty, leaving us with a very exciting project in providing guidance to this group. If you have any ideas for projects the high schoolers could help out with, please reach out to either John or Bob.
Leslie Clark provided an update on our annual effort to provide a Thanksgiving meal to those in need through St. Vincent De Paul. On Wednesday, November 24th, we have 21 folks signed up to help cook, pack up meals, and clean up on the day before the holiday. Prep work begins at 8:00 AM, with the packing and cleanup scheduled to be concluded by noon-ish. Masks and vaccinations are required, of course.
The Maine Historical Society is opening their doors to us on Tuesday, December 7th at 3:00 for an intimate viewing of the exhibit "Reckoning with Intolerance in Maine". This event will be limited to 24 people so please keep your eyes peeled for registration information, Rusty Atwood advised.
Memories of Russ Burleigh
Kathy Grammer is putting together the memorial service for Russ Burleigh. She would like to add his Rotary life to the equation and is asking for some stories. If members have any stories, thoughts, pictures, remembrances and snippets of info on Russ, please send them to Kathy at mezzogram@gmail.com by December 17.
Thanksgiving at St. Vincent de Paul's
Thanks to the efforts of Community Services Chair Leslie Clark, the connections of Tom Ranello, and former member Dick Giles, the Club’s annual holiday meal tradition at St. Vincent de Paul’s continued with a remarkable crew of cooks, servers, and bottle-washers:
Jan Chapman
Bruce Moore
John Marr
Laura Young
Michelle DiSotto and her husband, James
Tom Ranello
David Small with Hannah Frye (she was so lovely!)
Dick Hall
Amy Chipman
Bruce and Suzanne Jones
Charlie Frair
Bowen Depke
Ellen Niewoehner
Richard and Julian L’Heureux
Patty Byers
Jim Willey
Jim Vicenzi
Erik Greven
Rotarians At Work
It was a beautiful day on the Saturday before Thanksgiving when many Rotary hands gathered to fill the backpacks for those in recovery. Thank you to all who supported the project and help assemble the backpacks! Special thanks to Nancy Cormier and Leslie Clark of the Portland Recovery Community Center for helping us make a difference!
Foundation News | by Patty Byers
The Power of the Person
By Bob Martin
Sue Inches, an environmental activist and author, introduced by Jan Chapman, spoke to Portland Rotary on November 19 on the topic of finding hope in the face of climate change. Inches noted that many people feel overwhelmed with the enormity of issues surrounding climate change, but they still want to do something meaningful beyond using returnable shopping bags.
Inches said that advocacy for change starts with our own individual Earth stories. “I came across mine while planting trees in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon while in college,” she said. “I was devastated to learn that the clear-cut forest areas had also been treated with herbicides to prevent growth, but also created enormous effects on groundwater and drainage.” She said that stories ground, motivate, and sustain us and others. “There is power in our stories,” she added.
Inches shared the impact of the story of Fred Stone, a farmer in York County, who learned that PFAS chemicals in the manure he used to spread on his farm destroyed his herd of dairy cows, forcing him to shutter his business. Stone went to the Maine Legislature to testify on the problem, resulting in a law banning the use of PFAS, which has become a national model for similar legislation in other states.
According to the Center for Disease Control, PFAS are per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, “a group of chemicals used to make fluoropolymer coatings and products that resist heat, oil, stains, grease, and water. Fluoropolymer coatings can be in a variety of products. These include clothing, furniture, adhesives, food packaging, heat-resistant non-stick cooking surfaces, and the insulation of electrical wire. Many PFAS, including perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), are a concern because they:
do not break down in the environment,
can move through soils and contaminate drinking water sources,
build up (bioaccumulate) in fish and wildlife.
PFAS have been found in rivers and lakes and in many types of animals on land and in the water.”
Inches said that “citizen voices are important to influence legislators and balance corporate voices. Stories make abstract policies real because laws are abstract.” She noted that people are more powerful than you think, recalling a discussion with a Maine legislator who told her that “it only takes five phone calls to make an effect on a Maine legislator. That’s enough to make them pay attention to an issue.” She added that even a “snail-mailed letter has a huge effect.”
Inches did a quick review of environmental disaster history, pointing out that the first Earth Day held on April 22, 1970 drew a turn-out of 20 million people across the nation—about 10 percent of the country’s population at that time. The event catalyzed 28 major environmental laws passed by Congress between 1970 and 1980. “The most recent Earth Day in 2019 drew only 4 million. 1.8 percent of the population,” she lamented, while the severity of environmental issues has dramatically increased.
“Can we create critical mass to change our approach to protecting the environment?” Inches asked. She said we could if we followed a model with four actions:
Create Power—organizing in groups
Challenge the Status Quo
Envision the Future We Want—embracing vision
Support that vision in all that we do.
Inches said that we are now at a pivot point, but the current disruptions may be our best opportunity in years to create change.
Moment of Reflection
Living at the End of Time
By Robert Bly
There is so much sweetness in children’s voices,
And so much discontent at the end of day,
And so much satisfaction when a train goes by.
I don’t know why the rooster keeps crying,
Nor why elephants keep raising their trunks,
Nor why Hawthorne kept hearing trains at night.
A handsome child is a gift from God,
And a friend is a vein in the back of the hand,
And a wound is an inheritance from the wind.
Some say we are living at the end of time,
But I believe a thousand pagan ministers
Will arrive tomorrow to baptize the wind.
There’s nothing we need to do about John. The Baptist
Has been laying his hands on earth for so long
That the well water is sweet for a hundred miles.
It’s all right if we don’t know what the rooster
Is saying in the middle of the night, nor why we feel
So much satisfaction when a train goes by.
A Note from the Editor
The poet Robert Bly died earlier this week. He was 94.
Source: Poetry (February 2010)
Speaker Schedule
December 3 | Charles Norchi, Center for Oceans & Coastal Law, Maine Law School
December 10 | Paul Mayewski, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
December 17 | Bob Martin, Review, Reports, Reflection
Oceans & Coastal Law, and a faculty member of the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine. He teaches International Law, Oceans Law and Policy, International Human Rights, Maritime Law and Arctic Law, Science, and Policy. His research interests are public international law, Arctic law and climate change, international law of the sea, and policy sciences.
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