Frank Trautmann wasn’t at the State House Thursday for the unveiling of his gift to the people of Maine.

Health issues kept him away. But, truth be told, the 86-year-old probably would have had a hard time shrugging off all that gratitude anyway.

“He’s a very low-profile, quiet individual,” said his friend Buzz Caverly, former director of Baxter State Park.

Trautmann and Caverly share a deep reverence for the park and the legacy of Gov. Percival Baxter, the man who pieced it together and gave it to the state. That devotion led to Thursday’s announcement.

Trautmann donated his long-time summer home and oceanfront property on Islesboro in order to, first, make sure Katahdin Lake would be added to the park and, second, create a new trust fund to help manage and maintain Gov. Baxter’s grand gift.

Bishop Richard J. Malone, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Maine, will celebrate a Green Mass this weekend, a special service to honor those who work to protect the environment. The Diocese of Portland is extending a special invitation to those who work in environmental studies, forest and land management, environmental protection, wildlife management, conservation and park management.

The Bishop will “invoke God’s blessing upon all who serve and protect the natural beauty of our State,” according to the Diocese.

The Diocese has held other annual services with colorful themes. A White Mass honors those in the medical field, a Red Mass honors those in the legal profession and a Blue Mass honors emergency workers such as EMS, police and fire officials.

This is Maine’s first Green Mass, and church officials here are not aware of one happening anywhere else.

The Green Mass is Sunday, August 26 at 11 a.m. at St. Martin of Tours Church on Colby Street in Millinocket. The parish sits at a gateway to the North Woods and in the shadow of Mount Katahdin.

Here are the details.

Watch out College of the Atlantic, the University of Southern Maine is “greening up.”

Portland-based USM may not be ready to unseat COA as the world’s greenest college (see previous post), but the Portland-based school is taking the sustainable campus movement seriously.

The school's Abromson Community Education Center in Portland was the state's first to win “Gold” certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Former President Richard Pattenaude signed a pledge this year to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions by reducing energy use and investing in environmentally sustainable practices. The school also has been working to incorporate environmental issues into courses on criminology, business and other subjects.

Now USM has created a new minor in environmental sustainability. The program, which will be up and running this fall, is intended to provide broad training to help take on the world’s toughest environmental problems.  The 19 required credits cover such subjects as science, culture, policy, philosophy and economics.
 
For more information about the new program, look here or contact Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Travis Wagner at 207-228-8450, twagner@usm.maine.edu.

You’ve switched to fluorescent bulbs, the laundry is hanging out to dry and you’re trying hard not to visit the gas pump so often. So what else can you do to help save the planet?

Watch what you eat.

It turns out the food we choose can have a surprising impact on climate change and the environment, according to a growing number of studies around the world.

We already know that eating organic can help reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Now the hot eco-food trend is eating local, as in meats and vegetables produced within 100 miles of your kitchen.

The food we eat these days typically travels hundreds or thousands of miles before we pick it up at the supermarket. Some fruits and vegetables have come as far as 4,000 miles on ships, trains and trucks. That adds up to a lot of carbon dioxide pollution just to fill the fridge.

The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor has been ranked the world’s greenest college by Grist, a major environmental news Web site.

COA was a lock to make Grist’s inaugural list of sustainable campuses, though topping it is clearly a high honor for the school. It has been a green campus since it was founded in 1969 and its students helped pass Maine’s landmark bottle-redemption bill in 1973.

Students these days are more likely to travel the world to push for action on climate change than march to Augusta, though the school still has influence in state politics. Some of the state’s leading environmental activists are alumni and the co-chair of the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee, Ted Koffman, D-Bar Harbor, is an administrator at the school.

All COA students major in human ecology, or “the study of our relationship with our environment.” Grist also cited the fact that the school was the first to pledge that it would go carbon neutral, meaning it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions as close to zero as possible and then use offsets to cancel out the rest. More than 270 other U.S. colleges and universities – including several in Maine – have since made the pledge. In 2005, COA held its first zero-waste graduation.

No other Maine schools made Grist’s list of the top 15 schools and five runner-ups. Middlebury College in Vermont is number 2 and Earth University in Costa Rica is number 3. The University of New Hampshire made the list as a runner up.

Here is the list.

John Richardson is on vacation ... look for new updates in mid-August.

If you have a story tip or comment, please contact Andrew Russell at arussell@pressherald.com.