Natural Resources | ModeShift

Flip: Interactively Documenting Factory Farms

by Keith SchneiderJuly 31, 2007August 1, 20073

Â Among the priority hazards of joining capital and technology the way we doÂ in the 21st CenturyÂ is that it can blow upÂ the ordinary and familiar — a farm, for instance — into shapes and sizes that are extraordinary. That is what’s happening in Michigan and in many other states in animal agriculture. American meat, poultry, and milk, increasingly, are produced on immenseÂ sites that have come to be known as “factory farms.”Â For those who haven’t followed …

Green Neighborhood Grant Act in Illinois

by Keith SchneiderJuly 2, 2007October 31, 20073

Illinois, our neighbor to the west, has been doing a lot of things right of late for its residents, environment, and economy. It makes a Michigan resident a bit jealous.Â The Center for Neighborhood Technology and Bethel New Life, for example, convinced the Chicago Transit Authority to rebuild rather than tear down the elevated Green Line in the 1990s,Â helping to promote the revival of the city’s West Side. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley turned a tree-planting campaign …

Low Great Lake

by Keith SchneiderJune 28, 2007June 28, 20073

It’s an odd sight to venture to the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan’s upper peninsula and see dry dirt where there used to be water. Lake Superior, which holds 14 percent more water than the four other Great Lakes combined, is 18 inches below normal, lower than it’s been since 1926. We’re sort of used to low lake levels out here in the upper Midwest. Not long ago Lake Michigan was so low that …

Two Conversations on Energy in America; and Everything Else

by Keith SchneiderJune 27, 20072

You may have missed this little note out of Wall Street last week but many of the renewable and alternative energy funds are doing very well. The New Alternatives fund is up nearly 37 percent the last 12 months and 20 percent so far this year. The Guinness Atkinson fund is up 17 percent and 27 percent while the Wilder Hill funds, which launched last fall, are each up about 11 percent this year. By …

The Unforeseen: A Terrific Movie

by Keith SchneiderJune 21, 2007November 14, 20071

Earlier this month I attended the New York opening for The Unforeseen, Laura Dunn’s new documentary about the clash of values and struggle to protectÂ Barton Springs in Austin from the consequences of sprawling exurban development. I also met Laura and her husband, Jef Sewell, a well-known executive for anÂ entrepreneurial fulfilment companyÂ that serves entertainment Web sites.Â [youtube]24-6U5FK470[/youtube] David Brancaccio, the host of PBS’s Now program, also has taken an interest in Laura and the film and …

Public Opinion on Energy Bill: Conservation Trumps Production

by Keith SchneiderJune 19, 2007June 19, 20070

Ruy Teixeira, a journalist who does a very good job keeping track of public opinion at the Center For American Progress in Washington, published this analysis of where citizens think the energy bill being debated in Congress ought to go. The verdict: Towards green, efficient, conservation measures and not to new production.Â The money quote: “The public is also quite clear on its priorities when it comes to promoting energy conservation versus increasing the supply …

Toronto Transit City

by Keith SchneiderJune 18, 2007June 20, 20071

In 1954, the year that Detroit was busily completing the Lodge Freeway and starting construction on the city’s other major highways Toronto (see pix) opened 12 stations on the Yonge Street subway line, the city’s first. Since then Toronto has built three more regional rapid transit lines, 69 stations, and nearly 43 miles of subway and rapid transit track. The city’s subway and surface streetcar system carries 1.2 million passengers a day, many of whom …

Hey! Energy Bill Debaters Look At New York

by Keith SchneiderJune 12, 2007June 17, 20073

Â NEW YORK — Early this morning, before the sun peaked over the roofs of the grand old apartment buildings of the Upper East Side, I followed the road bikers and dog walkers and joggers over to Central Park for a splendid four-mile run.Â New York is full of young people now, bright, educated, trim, and ambitious.Â A whole bunch of them are up just after dawn toÂ clear their minds and keep their bodies tunedÂ sufficiently to compete …

Big Green’s Silent Spring For Rachel Carson — Take Two

by Keith SchneiderJune 7, 2007June 7, 200714

On the day late last monthÂ that Rachel Carson would have turned 100 years old I posted a piece on Mode Shift that focused on the surprising failure of the nation’s major environmental organizations to defend the mother of modern environmentalism. The free market right has set out on a deliberate path to diminish Carson, and by extension the American environmental community, as credible in responding to theÂ consequences of industrial technology. The attack on Carson is …

Pangea’s Biodegradable Package; Just Plant and Grow

by Keith SchneiderMay 30, 2007May 31, 20071

Here’s a name worth paying attention to in the space whereÂ sustainable business practices and the non-profit sector cross.Â He is Joshua Scott Onysko, a 30-year-old native of Rhode Island who turned a bonding experience with his mother making organic soap into Pangea Organics, a very successful Boulder-based manufacturer of organic body and skin care products. I first learned of Onysko and Pangea Organics from a friend in Saugatuck who was as enthusastic about the company’s all …