Tagged: environment

Wind can be a very significant power provider in the United States, especially in the Midwest. Environmental lawyer and writer Philip Warburg talks about wind as a resource, including how it relates to the economy and climate change. He spoke at Seattle's Town Hall on December 4, 2012. The talk was introduced by Denis Hayes, CEO of the Bullitt Foundation and coordinator of the first Earth Day.

North Dakota is booming. The state's unemployment rate is just 3.2 percent — well below the national average of 7.9 percent. Officials are trying to keep pace with a population surge brought on by oil industry jobs that have made North Dakota the country's number two oil-producing state. But what will extracting millions of barrels from the Bakken oil field mean for the region's environmental and economic future? Writer and reporter Richard Manning joins us with the story of North Dakota's oil boom.

Al Gore has been delving into the future. The former vice president and media mogul (he just sold his Current TV network to Al-Jazeera English) says we are at the dawn of a new era.

In his new book, “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change,” he takes an in-depth look at major shifts occurring in the world: globalization linked to automation and digital connections that are shaping a world where fewer workers are needed; population growth coinciding with a widening gulf between the haves and have-nots; new biological breakthroughs that are bringing humans into control of evolution.