This interdisciplinary symposium focuses on contemporary and historical cases analyzing the relationship between climate change and social conflict in the Middle East.
The Ford School's annual policy event and networking reception in Washington, DC, with featured speaker, Barry Rabe, J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy.
How do Americans think about energy? Is the debate over fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewable energy highly partisan and ideological? Are people’s preferences for different energy sources idiosyncratic, or is there a common pattern that explains how people view energy across sources? How much does concern about climate change weigh on these opinions?
Please join us for the next installment of the Environmental Law & Policy Program's Lecture Series. Patricia Beneke, North America Regional Director for the United Nations Environment Programme, will be the featured speaker.
Prior to her May 2014 appointment to the U.N., Ms. Beneke served as Senior Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for nearly 20 years, specializing in legislation and oversight matters relating to energy policy, water resources, and environmental issues. She also served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science for five years.
A reception will immediately follow.
This event is free and open to the public.
Mayor George Heartwell will talk about challenges and successes of implementing sustainable practices within the City of Grand Rapids.Free and open to the public.
CLOSUP welcomes guest speaker Ian Rowlands to discuss policies and politics of renewable electricity in Ontario, Canada. This lecture will examine the ways in which electricity generated by renewable resources (like solar and wind) have been encouraged in the province of Ontario (Canada) during the past 20 years.
From Cambodia’s forests to its rivers, from its idyllic rice fields to the capital’s pulsing heart, forces of radical change are transforming the landscape of the country – and the dreams of its people. A River Changes Course intimately captures the stories of three families living in Cambodia as they strive to maintain their traditional ways of life amid rapid development and environmental degradation. Award winning filmmaker and director Kalyanee Mam will offer introductory remarks, and take questions from the audience following the film screening.
Please join us for the latest installment of the ELPP Lecture Series. Professor Michael Wara, Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, will be the featured speaker.
A non-pizza lunch will be served. This event is free and open to the public.
Oil and gas development has increased substantially in the United States over the past decade, largely associated with shale resources. This increase has important implications for local government’s financial capacity to provide quality services to citizens. This talk will provide an overview of the major revenues and service demands (i.e., costs) associated with new oil and gas development for local governments, along with the net fiscal impact to date for county and municipal governments across ten oil and gas plays in eight states: Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wyoming.
The often-unnoticed actor in environmental policy is the state regulator—the Lilliputian. Together, these Lilliputians comprise the foundation of environmental regulation...
Severin Borenstein will discuss the economic changes that are likely to occur in the utility business model as renewables expand: how wholesale electricity markets will be affected, the impact on retail electricity distribution, and the incentives created for generators, distributors and consumers of electricity. He will also examine the role of demand response, storage, and transmission in adapting to the new realities of the electricity business.
Free and open to the public. Reception to follow. Discussants: Ian Beniston, Deputy Director, Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation Hunter Morrison, Director, Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium Initiative John Russo, Visiting Research Fellow, Virginia Tech University's Metropolitan Institute (Arlington) Moderators: Margaret Dewar, Professor, Urban and Regional Planning, University of Michigan June Manning Thomas, Centennial Professor, Urban and Regional Planning
Free and open to the public. Lunch provided. Speaker: Susan Christopherson, Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University See the presentation from the event:
A Distinctive US Approach to Shale Gas Development?
Abstract: Vertical drilling for natural gas, using at times another form of hydraulic fracturing, is permitted and has occurred for many years in the Marcellus Shale states.
Free and open to the public (pizza provided). Bob Inglis, Executive Director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative based at George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. About the presenter: Inglis founded and launched the national, grassroots organization Energy and Enterprise Initiative (E&EI) in July 2012.
Speaker: Peter Annin, Managing Director, Environmental Change Initiative at University of Notre Dame About the lecture: This presentation delves into the long history of political maneuvers and water diversion schemes that have proposed sending Great Lakes water everywhere from Akron to Arizona. Through the prism of the past, this talk analyzes the future of Great Lakes water diversion schemes, which now rests on the Great Lakes Compact released by the eight Great Lakes governors in December 2005.
Presenting Rip Rapson, President & CEO of the Kresge Foundation Free and open to the public. A reception will immediately follow in the hallway outside of room 250. About the speaker: Rip Rapson is president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation, a $3.1 billion private foundation based in metropolitan Detroit and founded by S.S. Kresge in 1924.
Open to the Public Dr. Henry Pollack, Professor Emeritus of Geophysics at the University of Michigan, and Tom Clynes, contributing editor at Popular Science, will deliver the keynote speech for the Fourth Annual U.S.-Canada Policy Conference, hosted by the Domestic Policy Corps and the International Policy Students Association. The 2013 conference, entitled "Planning for 2050: North American Policy for the Future of the Arctic," will focus on U.S. and Canadian Arctic policy, including issues related to the environment, national security, energy, and commerce.
Free and Open to the Public Panelists: Christopher Borick, Director, Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion Jacquelyn Pless, Energy Policy Associate, National Conference of State Legislatures Erich Schwartzel, Editor of Pipeline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Moderator: Barry Rabe, Director, Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) See the presentations from the event:
by Christopher Borick
Free and Open to the Public Panelists: Eric Lupher, Director of Local Affairs, Citizens Research Council of Michigan Sanya Carley, Assistant Professor, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Thomas P. Lyon, Professor, Ross School of Business and School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan Abstract Michigan and twenty-eight other states have enacted legislation that mandates increases in the amount of electricity that they use from renewable sources.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Betty Ford Classroom
Free and open to the public. Panelists: Christopher Borick Professor and Director, Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion, Muhlenberg College Erick Lachapelle Départment de science politique, Université de Montréal Barry Rabe Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R.
Watch video. Abstract This panel discussion will present a number of different approaches to urban food retail in the city of Detroit, including: a program that touches on the conventional grocery industry; a program to develop grocery sector entrepreneurs; a new model for community grocery stores; and alternative formats/vehicles for urban residents to get fresh food. Mo
Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series
This program features some of the best scholars of interest groups, policy advocacy, and social movements in the country. The papers presented span three disciplines (Political Science, Economics, Sociology) and include work that is experimental, formal, historical, comparative, qualitative, and quantitative. They deal with a number of topics, including corporate and nonprofit advocacy, health and environmental policy, and campaign finance.
Vivian Thomson will offer an insider’s account of how power is wielded in environmental policy making at the state level. Drawing on her experience as a former member of Virginia’s State Air Pollution Control Board, she narrates cases in Alexandria, Wise, and Roda that involved coal and air pollution. She identifies a “climate of capitulation” —a deeply rooted favoritism toward coal and electric utilities in state air pollution policies. Thomson links Virginia’s climate of capitulation with campaign finance patterns, a state legislature that depends on outsiders for information and bill drafting, and a political culture that tends toward inertia. She extends her analysis to fifteen other coal states and recommends reforms aimed at mitigating ingrained biases toward coal and electric utility interests.
Nuclear power is the primary carbon-free energy source technically capable of meeting the world's electricity needs. But current reactors use and generate special nuclear material that can be used for making nuclear weapons. Is it possible to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and simultaneously develop peaceful nuclear power technologies? At the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Panel Discussion, experts will describe and integrate technical and policy aspects of the nuclear power and nuclear nonproliferation problem.
In recognition of Earth Day, please join us for a very special lecture about what it takes to pass historic air quality legislation. Margo Oge served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 32 years, the last 18 of which she directed the Office of Transportation Air Quality. Ms. Oge led the Obama Administration’s landmark 2012 Clean Air Act deal with automakers, the nation’s first action targeting greenhouse gases. This regulation will double the fuel efficiency of automakers’ fleets to 54.5 mpg and cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2025.
Free and open to the public. Reception to follow in the Michigan League To register for this lecture, please visit the event website. Winona LaDuke, Internationally acclaimed American Indian author, orator, and activist The United States is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the world and influences international policy. It turns out that Native American communities have the potential to generate up to one half of present US electrical consumption through producing power from the wind.
