When she was a high school sophomore, Jane Lively rode the bus from Traverse City to Washington, D.C., with 55 other concerned citizens to join the February 2013 Forward on Climate rally. Now, 20 months later, Lively, a senior at Glen Lake High School and the daughter of Jim Lively, MLUI’s program director, is even more involved in the battle against climate change.
Most climatologists agree that, thanks to global warming, powerful storms are likely to get worse. So, as climate change works its steadily more destructive ways on modern civilization, building a power system that can stand up to more powerful, more frequent storms is crucial.
The Solar Powering Michigan conference on Sept. 12 in Traverse City could be arriving at just the right time, as more lawmakers and advocates are exploring ways to make sure solar is part of Michigan’s clean energy future. Organizers say the conference is the first of its kind in Michigan and is all about creating new jobs.
Members of citizen groups from around the state will be in Mackinaw City on Labor Day, but they won’t be on vacation. Instead, they will be at the south end of the annual Mackinac Bridge Walk, collecting signatures for a letter aimed at the most prominent of the event’s predicted 50,000 striders, Gov. Rick Snyder.
Ari Kresch, CEO of 1-800-LAW-FIRM, likes to brag that his Southfield company is the first in the country to use its phone number as its actual name. Perhaps more significantly, though, he may be the first attorney in the country to use an innovative, new financing mechanism called PACE, which stands for property assessed clean energy, to make major, money-saving, clean-energy upgrades to his building.
A bipartisan group of state representatives has introduced four bills, known as the Energy Freedom package that would allow Michiganders to invest more in solar, wind, or methane-powered generation; reap a better return; and share credit for the electricity they produce. Different combinations of 12 Democrats and five Republicans are sponsoring different parts of the package, marking a shift in the Michigan Legislature.