Economics | ModeShift

I Wish, I Will

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 30, 2007October 15, 20070

Â NEW YORK — The three-day Clinton Global Initiative concluded with a flurry of new commitmentsÂ including a five-year, $4 billion pledge by Pacific Gas & Electric and Ausra toÂ build solar thermal generating stations that both companies says is cost-competitive withÂ fossil fuel generation.Â California-based Ausra will build at least 1,000 megawatts of solar power plants and PG&E will purchase at least 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal, and the dealÂ will eliminate over 36 million tons of CO2 emissions …

Online, Televised, Blogged, YouTube and More New Media at the Clinton Initiative

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 29, 2007October 5, 20072

NEW YORK —Â Live television imagesÂ fromÂ the various plenary and working sessionsÂ are everywhere at the Clinton Global Initiative. They appear on screens as big as king size bed sheets in the main conference hall. They illuminate flat screens that stand in the halls and smaller meeting rooms. A row of smallÂ screens decorate a refreshment area close to the lobby of the Sheraton New York. This demonstration of televisedÂ ubiquity is just the leading edge of a communications strategy …

Climate Change Is A New Global Organizing Principle

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 27, 2007September 28, 20075

Â NEW YORKÂ — The X Prize Foundation, which developed a new philanthropic idea called “revolution through competition,” toldÂ participants today at the Clinton Global Initiative that it would commit $300 milion in the nextÂ seven years to help solve global crises in each of the four CGI focus areas. The foundation said it is developing new prizes to increase access to renewable fuels, improve energy efficiency, and promote use of cleaner fuels. It also will have …

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, …

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 …

Defending Lake Michigan Dunes

by Keith SchneiderAugust 1, 2007August 2, 20074

Â While visiting last month in New Buffalo, aÂ summering village along Lake Michigan’s southeastern coast, I learned that realtors and developers were preparing a campaign to significantly weaken or entirely repeal theÂ 31-year-old state law that protects Michigan’s magnificent fresh water sand dunes.Â The reason: the law was deemed to be an affront to “property rights” and an impediment to the development of some of the most compellingÂ maritime geography on the planet. Earlier this year, while researching …

Banning Coal Power Plants in Ontario; Promoting Them in Michigan

by Keith SchneiderJuly 18, 2007November 18, 20075

Â The Canadian province of Ontario,Â which lies across Lake Huron from Michigan, and is home to about the same number of people (10.3 million there, 10 million here), has supported one of the planet’sÂ active conversations on the ties between a strong economy and a clean environment.Â Much of the dialogue centers of global climate change and the province’s coal-fired power plants, one of which, the Nanticoke plant on Lake Erie, is among the largest on the …