Many Americans hear the word “economics” and quite literally start to talk business: bulls and bears, stocks and bonds, revenues and profits—you know the drill. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, though, economics is “a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.” For Dr. Sam Stolper, this meaning rings especially true when it comes to distribution. Sam is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), where he researches and lectures on the intersecting issues of economics and environmental justice, particularly as they apply to how the impacts of energy use and production are distributed. Continue reading Justice, Economics, and the Environment Walk into a Bar… A Conversation with Dr. Sam Stolper→
Where did you collect your most recent grocery haul? Try to remember the items you hastily organized on the conveyor belt at check-out. Now, where did all those come from?
1,500 is an important, if rarely recognized, number; it’s the average number of miles that produce travels on its way from an industrial farm to your dining room table. That is, unless you tend to shop for your produce locally.
Argus Farm Stop (or, “Argus,” if you’re familiar) is a business amalgam that can best be described as half “indoor farmers market” and half “hipster coffee shop/bakery.” The store features a cornucopia of produce, meat, and dairy grown by over 200 local farmers, 90% of whom are located within a 10 miles radius. Continue reading Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food→
Returning champions Meg, Logan, and Aurora discuss local ballot initiatives across the U.S. including carbon emissions fees in Washington, proactive water pollution prevention in Montana, fish protections in Alaska, a Floridian combo bill that intertwines vaping and off-shore drilling, and more! As an added bonus, the crew unveils their Halloween costumes for this year—and Aurora’s is quite chilling.
Also, Logan conducts his first interview with Chris Bowman, a graduate student at Michigan. Check out more details below:
Over the summer, Chris Bowman served as an intern for the Rocky Mountain Institute, a prestigious Colorado-based nonprofit that brands itself as a ‘think-and-do’ tank. There, he got plugged-into distribution grid work with solar energy cooperatives, of which there are just under 1,000 in the U.S. Specifically, Bowman focused his efforts on expanding and hastening the transition to renewable energy via market forces.
This fall, Bowman is back at Michigan continuing his graduate education as a proud, “Erber.” The Erb Institute is a dual-degree program through which students earn an MBA from the Ross School of Business as well as a master’s from the School for Environment and Sustainability over the course of three years. Bowman joined the program to gain a deeper understanding of the business, economics, and politics that set the stage for renewable energy markets to perform successfully. He speaks with fervor regarding the broadening transition to photovoltaics and renewables as our host Logan investigates a wide spectrum of topics, from front-of-the-meter generation to greater moral imperatives.
