Keith Schneider | ModeShift

The Unsound Science of Infrasound “Threat”

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 3, 2011February 3, 20113

The Michigan Land Use Institute this week posted a strong report, and a rich archive of supporting material, that raises important questions about the credibility of assertions that “infrasound” generated by utility-scale wind turbines produces dangerous health consequences. The article, by MLUI managing editor Jim Dulzo, a former colleague and a journalist who knows his way around complex issues, notes that opponents of big wind farms, including the 112-turbine, $360 million project proposed for Benzie …

Afraid of the Wind

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 28, 2011March 3, 20111

Earlier this month, on a snowy afternoon, the newly renovated Garden Theater held the largest crowd I’ve ever seen indoors in the small Lake Michigan coastal town of Frankfort, with the exception of girls and boys basketball games. On tap that day was a polemical documentary film, “Windfall.” Two groups of citizen activists held the screening to build civic momentum in opposition to a good-sized utility-scale windfarm proposed for Benzie and Manistee counties. Afterwards the …

Obama’s 80 Percent Clean Energy Goal: Who’s He Kidding?

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 26, 2011January 27, 20110

Arguably the central provision of President Obama’s State of the Union address last night was the proposal to generate 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 — including nuclear energy and CCS coal technology. Getting there will take a miracle, the same sort of pie in the sky thinking that allowed our president to also present the daft notion ofÂ giving 80 percent of Americans access to high speed rail …

Memo to Hu and Obama: Water and Energy Choke Points Merit Time at the China-U.S. Summit

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 18, 2011January 26, 20110

Washingtonâ€™s foreign policy community is all aflutter anticipating the meaning and outcome of Chinese President Hu Jintaoâ€™s three-day summit with U.S. President Barack Obama, which starts today. But while the two heads of state focus on resolving what pries them apart, both nations share a dangerous confrontation within their borders over energy demand and water supplyâ€”offering a matchless opportunity for new kinds of cooperation on policy, technology, business, and trade. The collision between rising energy …

Midwest’s Emerging Solar Manufacturing Sector

by Keith SchneiderDecember 1, 2010December 1, 20100

Michigan and Ohio have emerged as important centers of solar energy manufacturing. Here’s my latest piece in the New York Times. Big question for the two states and the rest of the American clean energy industry: Will the November election snuff out recent advances? Many of the conservative lawmakers elected to state Legislatures, governors’ offices, and Congress campaigned aggressively against climate science and public incentives for renewable energy. — Keith Schneider

Diplomacy in Climate Talks No Match For New Energy Alliances

by Keith SchneiderNovember 22, 2010November 22, 20101

On November 29 representatives from 190 countries will be in Cancun, Mexico for the 16th Conference of the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Late last week, following a two-day Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Washington, the Obama administration’s chief climate negotiator told reporters not to expect too much. “I would describe myself right now as neither an optimist nor a pessimist,” said Todd Stern, the State Department’s …

John Adams Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

by Keith SchneiderNovember 18, 2010November 20, 20100

Congratulations are in order for John H. Adams, the co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who yesterday was named one of the 15 recipients this year of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nationâ€™s highest civilian award. Adams is the first founder of an American environmental advocacy organization to receive the award since Russell E. Train was similarly honored in 1991. Train, of course, was a founding board member of the World Wildlife Fund …

For Climate Activists, Nowhere To Go But Forward

by Keith SchneiderNovember 17, 2010January 28, 20110

There’s nothing like confronting the big fist of climate denial in Congress to decide new tactics are needed to cool the planet. In the past week, U.S. climate activists shook off the national election’s punch to the gut and began delivering a few jabs of their own. This week in California, outgoing Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the formation of a clean energy financing program to commercialize technologies, reduce carbon emissions, and generate renewable energy. …

Village at Grand Traverse Commons in The NY Times

by Keith SchneiderNovember 10, 2010January 31, 20131

In 2003, just before major construction began to transform Traverse City’s 19th century psychiatric asylum into the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, Ray Minervini told me that within a decade or so the development would be a mixed use neighborhood with 800 residents, 1,000 jobs, and more than $100 million in residential, retail, and office development. That and other details were published in Traverse Magazine. Today I updated that original article in the New York …

Amid Turbulence A Path For Climate Action

by Keith SchneiderNovember 10, 2010November 10, 20100

Maybe things aren’t as dismaying as we thought a week ago. Or just a little less in the dismay department. In the last few days, two of the prominent names in American politics and business appeared to reach consistent conclusions about governing, technology, and the warming climate. On Friday, Karl Rove told an audience of natural gas developers in Texas that “climate is gone” as a Congressional issue. And this week, in a Rolling Stone …