Environment

Twin Cities car sharing grows, driven by concern for finances, environment

By Anna Burnstein, TC Daily Planet

All photos by HOURCAR.

Early in 2012, following the breakdown of their car, North Loop residents Joe Laha and his girlfriend Bridget Kromhout made the decision to give car sharing a try. Laha has used his bike to commute to work in downtown Minneapolis for years, and Kromhout has relied on public transit for her daily commute.

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Baseball and farming: This is the year

By Lee Egerstrom, Minnesota 2020

It's not an ideal day for baseball, but that won't stop the Minnesota Twins from opening their 2013 season today at Target Field, which also means the planting season is fast approaching for Minnesota farmers. An uncertain weather forecasts also looms over the farming season's open, with prospects for both spring flooding and summer drought.

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Minnesota 2020

BUILDing on brownfields: Federal bill seeks improvements to EPA redevelopment program

By Riordan Frost, Minnesota 2020

New development is always exciting, but seeing an old site brought back to life is especially rewarding—not to mention economically and environmentally beneficial. It happened with the polluted former brewery and railway site that is now the Bruce Vento Nature Conservancy, it might happen with the old Ford plant, it happened with a luxury apartment building in Uptown that used to be the Acme Tag & Label printing plant, and it is under consideration at the former potential site for the Vikings stadium.

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Minnesota 2020

Minnesota Farmers: Conservation Stewardship Program is on for 2013

By Adam Warthesen, Loon Commons

One of the nation’s most innovative working lands farm conservation initiatives has received a financial reprieve, thanks to the continuing resolution signed by President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

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Loon Commons

The question behind Minnesota Food Council legislation: Why import when we can grow local?

By Lee Egerstrom, Minnesota 2020

A lot of different small-scale growers, academics and communities are tossing ideas into the collective pot, hoping to come up with a cost and fuel efficient model for creating local food systems in Minnesota. "It’s like the childhood story of making stone soup," said Clarence Bischoff, a farmer near Red Wing who is among people pushing for a Minnesota Food Council.

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All St. Anthony Park Transition Festival will showcase Transition Town effort

By Kristal Leebrick, Park Bugle

If the words “smaller footprint” and “stronger community” sing to you, mark April 20 on your calendar for the All St. Anthony Park Transition Festival. That’s when Transition Town ASAP (an effort initiated by the District 12 Energy Resilience Group) will showcase an ambitious community venture that organizers hope will start moving the neighborhood toward less dependence on fossil fuel.

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University of Minnesota professor studies ways to clean and recycle fracking's wastewater

By Judy Woodward, Park Bugle

University of Minnesota professor of biochemistry Larry Wackett. (Park Bugle photo Lori Hamilton)

Fracking is in the news these days. The process involves extracting natural gas from shale rock formations deep below the earth’s surface by hydraulic fracturing—essentially blasting out the gas under high pressure with chemically treated water.

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Is your house leaking? Xcel offering subsidized energy audits

By Rebekah Peterson, My Broadsheet

You probably have some ideas about where your home is losing energy. We did too, but we wanted to make sure we knew the full story. We saw that Xcel Energy was offering subsidized home energy audits, and we signed up.

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Frac sand news: Hansen and Schmit bills advance; SEMN permitting; WI project threatens Riverway

By Sally Jo Sorensen, Bluestem Prairie

While bills related to regulating the frac sand industry make their way through the Minnesota state legislature, sand mining continues to generate headlines in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

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Bluestem Prairie

Howling for Minnesota's wolves

By Jeff Strate, Minnesota Progressive Project

Sport hunting and trapping of Minnesota grey wolves prompted Minnetonka’s Dr. Maureen Hackett to form Howling for Wolves, a citizen-driven campaign to get the DNR, Governor Dayton and/or the Legislature to replace such activities with humane and environmentally smart management protocols. When the Grey (Timber) Wolf was removed from the endangered species list by the Federal Government, the State, as we all know, provided a hunting season of it. Dr. Hackett and Nancy Nelson are not at all happy about this. They discuss the issues surrounding this important predator on the current edition of Democratic Visions. But you can see the segment and with this link.

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Minnesota Progressive Project
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