U.S. Fossil Energy Boom | ModeShift

Build High Speed Rail in the Midwest

by Keith SchneiderApril 23, 2007April 25, 200722

Â Since 1996, nine states in the American Midwest have been gradually inching forward on a proposal to establish a 3,000-mileÂ high speed train network linking 100 of theÂ region’s big and small cities.Â Chicago would serve as the hub of the The Midwest Regional Rail System. Spokes would include Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Columbus, Des Moines, and many other large cities served by trains capable of traveling 110 mph, which would make the travel time and …

Earth Day is Boomer Day

by Keith SchneiderApril 21, 2007April 21, 20078

Â Perhaps not since the very first one 37 years ago has Earth Day attracted the credibility or theÂ genuinely intense national and global focus that it has this year. Thousands of grassroots celebrations, including the annual march in downtown Traverse CityÂ today, are occurringÂ this weekend.Â In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a moderate Republican, introducedÂ a greenÂ investment plan and policy strategy forÂ transforming the nation’s largest metropolis into an even more transit-friendly,Â energy-efficient, environmentally-sensitive place to live and do …

Kunstler on Tom and His Green World

by Keith SchneiderApril 18, 2007April 18, 20070

Jim Kunstler, the author of The Geography of Nowhere andÂ wielder of one of the sharper editorial knives in the country, takes slices out of Tom Friedman’s Sunday New York Times Magazine article on the global green movement in anÂ essay that published on his site at kunstler.com andÂ picked up by Alternet.org.Â The money passage: “Friedman goes on to tout Wal-Mart’s mendacious campaign to “green” up its operations by, among other things, improving the mileage of its …

Gas Prices, Peak Oil, and the New American Backwater

by Keith SchneiderApril 12, 2007April 18, 20075

It’s the nuttyÂ season here in the first weeks of spring.Â The purebred chicken scratchÂ hill billy hound dog puppy that I picked up off the highway in southern Virginia almost 18 years agoÂ decided she’d had enough and wandered off two days ago and vanished.Â It’s been snowing hereÂ in Michigan’s great white north for more than a week.Â Over the weekend I shoveled nine inches of snow off the deck and driveway and it’sÂ colder than it was in January when …

More Big Boys Weigh In On Climate Change

by Keith SchneiderApril 6, 2007April 6, 20070

Â Â It was only a matter of time before global warming would become an organizing principle in the United States. Even for the conservative U.S. Supreme Court. It’s all come in a rush. This week, in aÂ 5-4 decision, the High Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority and duty toÂ regulate climate change gases produced by automobiles. The suit, brought in June 2003 by Massachusetts and 12 other states, asked the nine justices …

Reason? at Reason Foundation

by Keith SchneiderMarch 30, 2007April 1, 20072

It’s essential to stay abreast of what opponents to a reasoned development strategy have to say about Smart Growth. And there’s no more unreasonable voice on these issues than the social theorists at the libertarian Reason Magazine.Â This week Sam Staley and Ted Balaker published their newest assessment of the value of public transit,Â why Americans won’t ride new trains and buses, and how to relieve congestion. TheyÂ come to this conclusion: “The planning gurus who are supposed …

Step It Up On Climate Change

by Keith SchneiderMarch 28, 2007March 28, 20071

Monica Evans, who co-founded and oversees the regional chapter of the Sierra Club in northwest Michigan,Â reminded us this week of the Step it Up rally to accelerate action on global climate change. She and herÂ colleagues are hosting a regional event in downtown Traverse City on the afternoon of April 14, startingÂ at 1:30 in the Chase Bank Courtyard across from Horizon Books downtown. There’s a parade andÂ a potluck dinner afterward. The Traverse City rally is part …

Why Give Barack a Pass on Energy?

by Keith SchneiderMarch 27, 20072

It’s understandable that many Democrats are enthused about Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He’s young, hip, smart, and charismatic. He’s an African American in a race that also features a woman and a Hispanic man. And he talks a good line about energy, the environment, the economy, national security and global climate change that intelligent progressives have accepted uncritically, including those at ThinkProgress.com. But from this vantage his candidacy feels like it’s wrapped too …

What Is Al Gore Up To?

by Keith SchneiderMarch 21, 2007March 22, 20072

In case you missed it, Al Gore spoke to both houses of Congress today about global climate change, calling it a “planetary emergency.”Â As aÂ reputation boosting, global elevating, and upcoming book promoting exercise, Gore’s confident stroll through the various hearing rooms that he once occupied as a sitting memberÂ was terrific theater. But having been a Gore watcher since the 1980s, when he was a young congressman and I was a young correspondent, I just have this …

Cleaning Up Those Coal Plants

by Keith SchneiderMarch 16, 2007March 23, 20071

Tom Friedman has a very interesting piece in the March 16 edition of the New York Times that reports the back story of the announcement last month that TXU would not build eight high-polluting coal plants in Texas. Turns out that the new owners of the utility were concerned about the public relations fallout from the battle they’d been engaged in with grassroots groups in Texas, and national environmental organizations, particularly Environmental Defense and the …