Keith Schneider | ModeShift

Straightening The Noodles at Clinton Global Initiative, Plus Jolie-Pitt

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 26, 2007September 27, 20072

Â NEW YORK –Â This morning at the opening session of the Clinton Global Initiative, Lee Scott, Wal-Mart’s chief executive, explained to hundreds of international leaders why hisÂ corporate behemoth, one of the iconic companies of this age, has very quickly embraced environmental sensitivity andÂ energy efficiency as a business strategy.Â It’s all about the benefits that occur when you “straighten the noodles,” he said. Specifically, Mr. Scott described what happened when Wal-Mart asked executives at Betty Crocker, …

Onward to Clinton Global Initiative in New York

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 25, 2007September 25, 20070

[youtube]9Jhu6uk3sMw[/youtube] Three years ago when he founded the Clinton Global Initiative, which has emerged as one of the most influential and prestigious annual gatherings of world leaders, former President Bill Clinton understood that the new century’s formative operating principles depended on collaboration, not hierarchy. Only through the efforts ofÂ untraditional allies working together could people make progress on any idea or project of real significance. If you doubt this, just consider that in the 20th …

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 23, 2007April 24, 20214

As a lifelongÂ member of the tribe of career adventuristsÂ it’sÂ time to announce another turn in the journey. I am leaving the Michigan Land Use Institute to take a new position as senior editor and strategist for Circle of Blue, an independent online journalism, research, and movement building organization focused on helping to solve theÂ freshwater crisis.Â What’s especially keen, along with the great promise of a new way to influence aÂ global environmental and economic crisis,Â is thatÂ I won’t have …

Flip: High Speed Camera Yields New Way To See World

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 22, 2007September 23, 20071

[youtube]LDbR-yW8Pf0[/youtube] A long time ago IÂ followed my parents to theÂ 1964 World’s Fair in New York and saw for the first time how a television and a phone (so what,Â say the teenagers who hang around my house)Â would eventually converge into a new communications appliance that At&T Â called a “picturephone.” That was big stuff, though, in those days and itÂ cemented in me a keen curiousity about gadgets andÂ technology. Â That was the era of space shots and moon …

Flip: Finding A Heavy Breeze

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 18, 2007September 24, 20070

Â This entry in Mode Shift’s Flip category, which spotlights great online applications of multi-media technology,Â introduces a brand new mapping tool to help local government officials, utilities, and entrepreneurs identify suitable places to buildÂ commercial-scale wind turbines in Michigan. Developed by the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University, and dubbed the Michigan Prospecting Tool by itsÂ developers, Charles McKeown and Benjamin Calnin, the online toolÂ provides users an easy and elegant wayÂ to find the windiest places in …

Michigan’s Energy Schizophrenia

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 6, 2007September 20, 20078

Late last month I had the chance to spend the day with scientists at Michigan State University who are involved in carrying out the work of the new Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a partnership between MSU and the University of WisconsinÂ financed by a five-year, $125 million federal research grant. It isÂ one of three such centers across the country determined toÂ fillÂ America’s national gas tank with fuel made from plants. Bruce Dale, a chemical engineer at …

Before Grassoline, Settling A Dispute Among Experts

by Keith SchneiderAugust 23, 2007August 24, 200718

David Pimentel, an ecologist who spent all of his career at Cornell University after earning his doctorate in entomology in 1951, is one of the most respected environmental scientists of his generation. He was among the select group of young ecologists who in the 1960sÂ first identified the environmental and public health hazards of farm chemicals, and helped build the scientific case forÂ healthier, more environmentally-sensitive agriculture practices. The fact that organic cropsÂ are the fastest growing sector …

Mitt Romney Has A Smart Growth Record; But He Keeps It Hidden

by Keith SchneiderAugust 20, 2007August 21, 20070

Â There’s never been a time in my life, which now spans 51 years, when the conversation in communities is so distanced from what state lawmakers choose to talk about. And the gulf only gets wider between the concerns knocking around state capitols and what Congress and the White House think is important. This isn’t a partisan problem. It’s a national disgrace. Our state government here in Michigan, for example, is led by a two-term …

An Energy Alliance to Watch in Michigan and Elsewhere

by Keith SchneiderAugust 8, 2007August 8, 20070

John Bebow, the executive director of The Center For Michigan and a former reporter for the Detroit News and Chicago Tribune, reports in his weekly update that M and M Energy, a Florida-based energy development company, has proposed building a multi-billion dollar “polygeneration” coal-fired electric generating stationÂ on the site of a shuttered oil refinery in Alma.Â The company presented its plan to the state Senate Energy Committee in mid-April and has been busy shopping the ideaÂ in …

Michael Moore and the Traverse City Film Festival

by Keith SchneiderAugust 5, 2007November 14, 20075

In the fall ofÂ 1993, when I moved to northwest Michigan,Â Poppycocks was the only decent place to eat on Traverse City’s Front Street. The cityÂ had plenty of surface parking lots where buildings once stood,Â a delapidated State Theatre on Front Street, andÂ a ghostlyÂ 100-year-old psychiatric asylumÂ on its western boundary.Â On the sprawling outskirts, the Grand Traverse Mall had just opened and the South AirportÂ ringÂ road at the mall’s doorstepÂ was so fry pit-ugly and congested that it was a metaphor for …