Hello, 

This morning, as Jennifer Smith and I put the finishing touches on her story "Water doesn’t know property lines,” we got to talking about how little a town can do if a piece of private property is about to fall into the ocean. 

It was this bit of reporting that surprised her the most. “Unless the house is literally about to collapse and the town can get their building department to condemn it, there’s almost nothing they can do,” Jennifer told me. “Resiliency plans can only touch town-controlled property. But that’s just a portion of the property along the coasts.” 

Jennifer’s story today is a deep dive into the how communities on the Cape and Islands are grappling with the tightly interrelated issues of housing loss in Massachusetts and increasingly severe flooding and erosion on the coast. In some communities, every piece of available land is being simultaneously eyed for conservation or housing – ideally affordable – and this fight for property is taking place against a backdrop of a tight housing market in which values can plummet precipitously because of flooding or beach erosion.  

I’m excited to share this story with you today – along with a piece from Bruce Mohl, who got the inside scoop on another delay in the negotiations over contracts for two new offshore wind farms and what that means for Gov. Maura Healey’s energy plans – as we kick off a month of concentrated climate coverage at CommonWealth Beacon.  

Over the next four weeks, we will be publishing a series of stories from across the state on some of the challenges facing Massachusetts and the solutions that may help both decrease our carbon output and mitigate the worst of the effects of rising temperatures.  

We will also be dedicating space on our opinion page to bring together a range of voices to look at the opportunities and tradeoffs that may arise as the state moves toward its climate goals. And, we are dedicating two episodes of the Codcast in April to this endeavor. 

You will still see articles on other topics this month, but this is our attempt to create a comprehensive look at how climate change is reshaping Massachusetts. Our hope is that it’s just the beginning of a conversation with you on this pressing issue. 

With gratitude, 

Laura Colarusso

Editor, CommonWealth Beacon