FAST COMPANY 03/09/21 By Michael Shank Now that Tom Vilsack is back at the helm at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for his second stint as secretary, receiving Senate confirmation last month, he’s been promoting conservation and a new bank to convince farmers to support climate action by paying […]
International Analysis
A Prescriptive Path Forward for Saving Struggling Countries’ Economies
THE HILL 05/20/20 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Gregory Meeks When the heads of all the agencies at the United Nations come together and find consensus on something, their advice is worth heeding. Recently, they did just that, issuing an emergency fund appeal and urging a rapid and coordinated […]
Winning Hearts and Minds for the Clean Energy Transition
EUSEW SECRETARIAT 05/18/20 Dr. Michael Shank Contributing to the blog this week is Dr. Michael Shank, Communications Director for the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance and Adjunct Faculty at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, EUSEW 2020 Digital Ambassador. The world is waking up to a new reality. Covid-19 makes […]
Link Between Factory-Farmed Animals, COVID-19 and Preventing the Next Pandemic
THE HILL 04/21/20 By Michael Shank and Carter Dillard While there’s much to celebrate this week as we recognize the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, the world made a baseline mistake in developing environmental policy decades ago. It chose to treat nature as an unlimited resource for humans. This baseline […]
Virus Highlights Nature’s Right To Be Left Alone
LAW360 04/01/20 By Michael Shank Rights-based advocacy does well in the United States. The right to vote. The right to bear arms. The right to marriage. The right to choose. The right to own property. The fights and freedoms won in the last century were pitched, packaged and positioned as […]
Clean Energy is Not Just Good for the Environment. It Also Prevents War
NEWSWEEK 02/12/20 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Hank Johnson Take oil out of the foreign policy picture, and American presidents would have lacked motive to preemptively attack Iraq, Libya and now Iran. There were equally authoritarian leaders of other countries at the time, operating with even greater propensity toward […]
6 More Tips to Win Minds and Hearts for the Climate
APOLITICAL 1/21/20 By Michael Shank If you’re not sold on your climate message, the public won’t be either This article is written by Dr. Michael Shank, communications director for the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance and adjunct faculty at New York University’s Centre for Global Affairs. In my last article for […]
6 Tips to Make Climate Communication Less Awful
APOLITICAL 01/14/20 By Michael Shank This article is written by Dr. Michael Shank, communications director for the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance and adjunct faculty at New York University’s Centre for Global Affairs. Environmentalists have long depended on good data and sound science to set the direction of their advocacy agendas. […]
Six More Behavioural Science Tips for Green Policymaking
APOLITICAL 12/18/19 By Michael Shank This article was written by Dr Michael Shank, communications director for the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance and adjunct faculty at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. In my latest article for Apolitical, I covered six behavioural science-based principles that will help you roll out […]
6 Ways of Using Behavioural Science in Green Policymaking
APOLITICAL 11/26/19 By Michael Shank This article is written by Dr. Michael Shank, communications director for the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance and adjunct faculty at New York University’s Centre for Global Affairs. We need to quickly move our cities and towns towards more sustainable development. To do that, we need […]