Former House Majority Leader Richard Gephart and Congressman Mike Ross will headline the Clean Coal Technology Conference being held July 17-18 at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope.  According to Amy Riggin of Arkansas Business, “The conference details the state’s role in the development and deployment of advanced clean coal technologies and the associated environmental, economic and public policy concerns.”

Billionaire oil man T. Boone Pickens has launched a new initiative around renewable energy. Called “The Pickens Plan,” it aims to cut to America’s dependence on foreign oil by less than a third in a decade. How? Wind energy and natural gas.

Pickens appears to be leading by example. He’s in the process of building the world’s largest wind farm near Amarillo, Texas which will include 700 wind turbines at a cost of more than $2 billion. He expects to begin generating electricity in 2011. According to USA Today, “Pickens’ plan is to produce enough wind power within 10 years to divert 20% of the natural gas now used to fuel power plants for use in cars and trucks.”

The Sierra Club is already on board. Said Executive Director Carlo Pope, “To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.”

UPDATE: Pickens authors this op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal.  He writes, “Why do I believe that our dependence on foreign oil is such a danger to our country? Put simply, our economic engine is now 70% dependent on the energy resources of other countries, their good judgment, and most importantly, their good will toward us. Foreign oil is at the intersection of America’s three most important issues: the economy, the environment and our national security. We need an energy plan that maps out how we’re going to work our way out of this mess.”

“Mike Huckabee last year accepted $52,000 in speaking fees from a bio-tech giant that wants to research human embryonic stem cells, a non-profit working to expand access to the morning after pill and a group pushing to study whether tightening gun control laws will reduce violence,” reports The Politico.

“It raises questions as to his philosophical positions,” [American Conservative Union Executive VP Bill] Lauderback asserted, “if he is accepting very lucrative speaking fees from special interest groups who have a markedly different perspective on certain social issues from what he is projecting as a candidate.”

“The speaking and book circuits helped Huckabee, whose salary during his decade as governor never topped $79,000, make ends meet – both before and after he left the governor’s mansion early this year. According to state and federal public records, he pulled in more than $405,000 since 2004 in honoraria, books sales, consulting and outside income through 12 Stops, Inc. a company set up that year to manage his private sector business,” the article notes.

And no, I don’t mean hangover from all of the joy, presents, food, family and generally obnoxious cheer.  Rather, I mean the booze.  The hard stuff.  The sauce.  “According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the $58 billion distilled-spirits industry makes about 25 percent of its profits between Thanksgiving and New Year’s,” reports Newsweek.   So what can you do to ease the hangover after that much-too-fun holiday party?  Newsweek looks into the matter. 

The Nature Conservancy of Illinois has launched (with the help of Stone Ward) an impressive public awareness campaign about mounting global environmental concerns.  The project is known as “Start One Conversation” and according to the website “We are asking people to start conversations with their friends, colleagues and family members about something very important: Life. Conservation today is about conserving lands and waters for nature and people. The future of the human species, and all of Earth’s other species, is dependent on a healthy planet and the life-sustaining systems that provide clean air, water, food and shelter that both people and wildlife need to thrive.” 

Bravo, TNC.  Check out the website, and start a conversation. 

“The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former American vice president, and to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to alert the world to the threat of global warming,” reports The New York Times.

“My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100 percent of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis,” said Gore.

I just received this message regarding a fundraiser Al Gore was supposed to attend for California Senator Barbara Boxer:

Carla Marinucci: UPDATE - Gore cancels appearance at Boxer fundraiser
Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office just contacted us to say former Vice President Al Gore has been called “overseas” for a trip related to his work on global warming and has canceled his scheduled appearance Thursday in San Francisco at a fundraiser for Boxer’s re-election effort. So the Boxer fundraiser — which was to include Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne — is off until Nov. 9.

Here’s a note Boxer sent supporters about the change:
I just got a call from Vice President Al Gore. He told me that he needs to travel abroad tomorrow for an exciting and urgent mission that could result in a major breakthrough in the fight against global warming.

Unfortunately, this means that we must postpone our Thursday, October 11th event with him until Friday, November 9th. I wanted to be sure to e-mail you tonight in case you were planning on attending.

While I am really disappointed that we won’t see Al Gore until next month, I am thrilled that he is continuing to provide critical leadership to address one of the most pressing issues of our time. You should know that only the most urgent global warming mission has called him out of the country.

I look forward to seeing you on November 9th so we can all hear first-hand about Al Gore’s latest exciting initiatives. We will be back in touch in the coming days with more details about the rescheduled event.

Thank you so much for your continued friendship and support!

Barbara Boxer

Middlebury College professor Bill McKibben has a nice piece in the recent issue of The New York Review of Books about a collection of books on climate change.  You can also send McKibben a question via e-mail, and he’ll respond to them in early October.   

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming  by Bjørn Lomborg

Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger

What We Know About Climate Change by Kerry Emanuel

Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren edited by Joseph F.C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman

“Like the plans put forth by former Senator John Edwards and Senator Barack Obama, her chief rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton’s proposal would try to strengthen and build on the existing, employer-based system, through which most Americans under 65 already receive their coverage. She would create new options for buying private or public insurance at affordable rates, require everyone to obtain insurance, and provide subsidies and tax credits to small businesses and individuals who could not afford it.

The plan, with an estimated cost of $110 billion a year, would be financed largely by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for Americans making over $250,000 a year and by savings in the health care system,” reports The New York Times. 

I haven’t commented about Al Gore’s impressive and thoughtful book “The Assault on Reason”.  I read the book several weeks ago, and found many of his ideas provoking, especially his predictions related to the web and how user generated content will change the the way we talk to each other.  I’ve argued this point for sometime, and people intimately connected to the web, whether it’s through blogs, podcasts, webcasts or whatever are certain to agree.

Michael Tomasky reviews the book in this week’s issue of The New York Review of Books.  

This weekend, Matt Smith’s Market Street Cinema in Little Rock begins showing “The 11th Hour” a documentary produced and featuring Leonardo DiCaprio about the state of the planet in the time of global warming.

Conservation guru and all around good guy Rob Fisher invited me to a screening on Tuesday night that I unfortunately had to miss.  Rob is the Executive Director and co-founder of an environmental action and habitat preservation non-profit in Little Rock, as well as an adjunct professor at the Clinton School of Public Service.  He reviews the film in this week’s issue of the Arkansas Times.

Rob notes,  “Before viewing the documentary, I worried that it would be too depressing for the average viewer and that it would cause a sense of helpless despair. I left the screening feeling more educated and motivated than anything. I returned to my office to convey the documentary to my friends and found myself almost lecturing on climate change. If this is the response from viewers, I believe “The 11th Hour” will be a huge success - an important contribution to a more encompassing education for the general public on climate change. ”

Rob was recently appointed to the Governor’s Commission on Global Warming - an importantventure for Arkansas to truly address the pressing issues related to climate change.

Take a look at this film.  It features commentary from Bill McKibben (a Middlebury College professor! and author of “Deep Economy”), Kenny Ausubel, Sylvia Earle, Paul Hawken, Andrew Weil, Wallace J. Nichols and others.

Created by Act 696 of the 86th General Assembly, the Commission will study the issues and potential impact of global warming in Arkansas, and work with state agencies to reduce contaminants that contribute to global warming.

“Global warming is a growing concern that requires study and action on both state and federal levels,” Beebe said. “This commission will give Arkansans our own perspective on the scope and potential impact of this phenomenon and recommend the best steps to take to protect ourselves, our environment and our economy for the future.”
There are 21 Commission members, 17 of whom are appointed by the Governor.  The establishing law requires representation from different areas of society and industry.  Here are the appointees:

— Aubra Anthony, El Dorado, Forestry
— Nick Brown, Little Rock, Public Energy
— Rep. Joan Cash, Jonesboro, At Large
— Steve Cousins, El Dorado, Arkansas Chamber of Commerce
— Dr. Jerry Farris, Jonesboro, Scientist
— Rob Fisher, Little Rock, At Large
— Dr. Richard Ford, Little Rock, Economist
— Miles Goggans, Little Rock, Agriculture
— Dr. Art Hobson, Fayetteville, Scientist
— Kevan Inboden, Jonesboro, Municipal Energy
— Christopher Ladner, Little Rock, Sustainable Energy Construction
— Robert McAfee, Hackett, Climatologist
— Elizabeth Martin, Marion, AFL-CIO
— Pearlie Reed, Little Rock, Agriculture
— Dr. Cindy Sagers, Fayetteville, Environmental Nonprofit
— Jeffrey Short, Malvern, Environmental Nonprofit
— Gary Voigt, Paron, Rural Electrical Cooperative

The Little Rock National Airport on Wednesday took its first steps toward installing registered travel lanes, allowing for expedited access through airport security to registered members.

Clear, one of the nation’s registered traveler lane providers, opened an enrollment center at the airport on Tuesday.

Clear has enrolled more than 54,000 travelers throughout the country, providing them with biometric identity cards that allow fast access through airport security checkpoints for an annual fee of $99.95. Members are pre-screened and approved by the Transportation Security Administration.

Clear said it plans to open its security checkpoint lane at Little Rock National Airport later this month.

Clear cards are accepted at airports in Albany, N.Y.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; San Jose, California; Orlando, Florida; New York (JFK), Reno-Tahoe and Newark, NJ. Soon, LaGuardia, San Francisco and Westchester will begin accepting cards, along with Little Rock.

Clear is a service of Verified Indentity Pass, Inc. The company was founded by CEO Steve Brill. Brill is the author of “After: How American Confronted the September 12 Era” and the founder of The American Lawyer, Brill’s Content and Court TV.

The point is, innovation is like exercise. You’ve got to make it a habit, you’ve got to schedule time for it, or it slips through the cracks in your over-booked life. That’s the idea behind Innovation Wednesday, to dedicate some time to developing those creativity muscles.  - - Chuck Salter’s blog entry from Fast Company. 

Each Wednesday, Fast Company takes a look an innovative idea.  This week it was Southwest Michgan First, an economic development group based out of Kalamazoo.