RUTLAND HERALD 05/09/20 TIMES ARGUS 05/09/20 By Michael Shank In Vermont’s all-hands-on-deck response to the COVID-19 crisis, no stone is left unturned. And it’s incredibly inspiring. Everyone is chipping in, helping neighbors with grocery deliveries, donating goods to local food shelves and banks, making homemade masks for health workers, and […]
RUTLAND HERALD 4/28/20 By Michael Shank and Carter Dillard While we recognize the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in Vermont, social distancing in nature, 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 allowed […]
RUTLAND HERALD 02/08/20 TIMES ARGUS 02/08/20 By Michael Shank When it comes to green energy innovation, there are few American states that innovate like Vermont. Recently, Vermont’s biggest power utility — Green Mountain Power (GMP) — launched a peer-to-peer energy sales platform that will allow businesses to buy locally generated […]
RUTLAND HERALD 01/18/20 TIMES-ARGUS 01/18/20 By Michael Shank When it comes to green technology, Vermont has been and continues to be a national leader. Whether it’s the cutting-edge partnership between Tesla and Green Mountain Power to roll out Powerwall batteries across the state — ensuring resilient homes for Vermonters while […]
RUTLAND HERALD 12/21/19 TIMES ARGUS 12/21/19 By Michael Shank Given the climate inaction among national governments — from America and Australia to Brazil and Britain — there’s been a big focus on actions individuals can take — in Vermont and beyond. This pivot is helpful because it does, in fact, […]
RUTLAND HERALD 10/17/19 By Kate Barcellos BRANDON — A journalist and communications director for the Carbon Neutral Cities alliance will host an environmental video competition to help spread the word about climate change in Rutland County. Brandon resident Dr. Michael Shank is an adjunct faculty member at New York University […]
RUTLAND HERALD 10/15/19 By Keith Whitcomb Jr. BRANDON — The Select Board voted Monday to adopt a plan for renewable energy development. Board Chairman Seth Hopkins said in an interview Tuesday the vote was unanimous, and there wasn’t much discussion, given the amount of past conversations about it. The new […]
RUTLAND HERALD 10/05/19 TIMES ARGUS 10/05/19 By Michael Shank The way our society responds to problems — be they social, economic or environmental — rarely prevents that problem from occurring again. We’ll quickly treat a cough, by temporarily suppressing it with cough medicine, for example, but not change the conditions […]
RUTLAND HERALD 07/31/19 By Keith Whitcomb Jr. BRANDON — The town must hear from the public before it can adopt an “Enhanced Energy Plan,” that will give it more clout with the state over renewable energy projects. According to the town’s website, public hearings on the proposed “Brandon Enhanced Energy […]
RUTLAND HERALD 06/15/19 TIMES-ARGUS 06/15/19 This spring, a settlement was reached between the state of Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources, Vermont’s Toxics Action Center office, and the Brandon-Leicester-Salisbury-Goshen-Pittsford Insect Control District, where I live. While it technically ends a legal dispute over pesticide spraying in Vermont, which originated due to […]