ModeShift - Part 50

A Natural Gas Gusher in Michigan Could Mean Big New Play, and Trouble

by Keith SchneiderJuly 31, 2010July 31, 20100

Photo Â© Heather Rousseau / Circle of Blue The aptly named Pioneer natural gas well, near Lake City in Missaukee Countyâ€™s Pioneer Township, is a stack of gauges and metal piping that rises about 7 feet from a bed of crushed stone at the center of a five-acre clearing surrounded by Michigan hardwoods. The only sound in the clearing is of songbirds hidden in the trees. The sole scent from the straight-as-a-gun-barrel well–drilled and tested …

Copenhagen’s Fallout: Senate Drops Climate Action From Energy Bill

by Keith SchneiderJuly 22, 2010September 9, 20100

Until December 2009, the idea of acting to cool the Earth was on a roll. High points included 2007 Nobel Prizes for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s breakthrough science and for Al Gore’s astonishing work to elevate global warming to an international priority, They also included Barack Obama’s winning 2008 presidential election, and the formation of global online grassroots activism led byÂ 350.org and TckTckTck, a project of the Global Campaign For Climate …

Obama To Visit Holland, Michigan For Battery Plant Groundbreaking

by Keith SchneiderJuly 13, 2010July 13, 20100

President Obama will be in Michigan on Thursday for the groundbreaking ceremony of a new LG Chem-Compact battery plant, which will make the power sources for the Chevy Volt, expected to be introduced later this year. The plant is one of 17 new manufacturing facilities in Michigan connected to battery production for electric vehicles. On May 26 ModeShift published a full account of the federal and state-financing that leveraged the more than $6 billion total …

Climategate Is Over, The Moment to Act on Warming and Energy is Here

by Keith SchneiderJuly 8, 20100

As cities on the East Coast sweltered in the sort of dispiriting record-breaking heat that climate scientists accurately predicted, the Obama administration’s lawyers were in a federal appellate court in New Orleans today to reinstate the moratorium on deep sea oil and gas exploration the Interior Department issued in May. Last month a federal district judge with investment interests in the energy industry struck down the temporary ban on new drilling. It’s been that kind …

Science Vindicated as Senate Edges Toward Climate and Energy Debate

by Keith SchneiderJuly 7, 2010July 7, 20100

The 20-year global campaign to cool the planet, one of the most influential civic movements in human history, was built on two points of reference. The first is visible evidence on every continent of escalating temperatures, melting ice, more ferocious storms, fiercer droughts, and deadlier floods. The second is the wealth of scientific data that proves Mother Nature’s erratic behavior is no accident. It’s the result of the combustion of fossil fuels that is steadily …

On Climate and Energy, Pressing For Inevitability

by Keith SchneiderJuly 2, 2010July 2, 20100

Following a 90-minute White House meeting Tuesday on climate and energy legislation with a bipartisan group of senators and President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged to issue this assessment: “The President led a spirited, productive discussion this morning about how to move forward on clean energy legislation. Our caucus is energized on this issue and our resolve to act on energy legislation this summer remains strong.” In holding the meeting, the president and …

In Era of Turmoil, Top of the World is Melting

by Keith SchneiderJune 30, 2010June 30, 20100

Photo Â© Aaron Jaffe / Circle of Blue By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue In January, when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged that it was wrong in predicting that the glaciers of the Himalayas could be gone by 2035, skeptics of global warming used the error to assert that much of climate science was a fraud. Next month, though, the Asia Society Museum opens a month long exhibition in New York …

Here’s What Happened to All Those Closed Dealerships

by Keith SchneiderJune 30, 20102

The New York Times today published my latest piece in the Business section. Subject: What happened to all of those new car and truck dealerships that closed in the last several years. The crux of the piece, which focused on a closed dealership in Whitehall, Michigan is this: Since early 2009 some 2,300 auto dealerships have closed around the country, as new car sales plunged more than 40 percent and the government, after taking ownership …

The New D.C. Drive to a Climate and Energy Bill

by Keith SchneiderJune 25, 20100

Well, now the Senate is getting into the act, at last. Bolstered by new opinion polls and driven by a monstrous blowout that is closing Gulf Coast beaches at the height of the travel season, Democratic leaders stirred into action this week to develop and pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation. They’re following, of course, the president’s lead. On Wednesday President Obama concluded an all hands cabinet meeting at the White House by publicly declaring …

Obama Vows To Go Where No Man Has Gone Before: Passing and Signing Climate and Energy Legislation

by Keith SchneiderJune 23, 2010June 24, 20100

Given the emotional reserve of a man whose aides once referred to as “no drama Obama,” the president is getting pretty fired up about energy.Â On Wednesday President Obama concluded an all hands cabinet meeting at the White House by publicly declaring again his resolve to develop a “new energy strategy that the American people desperately want.” “It is time for us to move to a clean energy future,” the president said, adding that “the …