Michael Higdon's Blog (10)

Hey, I unfortunately have to cancel the forum today because too many panelists pulled out and I didn't feel the conversation would be well informed or have enough perspectives. I'm sorry to anyone who was watching my progress or interested in attending. The biggest problem came from the date picked, I think. There was a lot of interest and I appreciate all of your support, it was a great effort. Ideally I had hoped to have the forum on a Wednesday but the proper times weren't available and Apri… Continue

Everything is in the waiting stages right now. I must have confirmations for everything by tomorrow or I'm going to cancel the event because I need to start marketing and making help packets, surveys and getting the panelists talking to each other and I don't want to be trying to confirm stuff this close to the show. John Sagebiel cancelled and his potential replacement Christopher Simon can't make it either. I'm down to Brian Bahouth and Tim Hay confirmed. Tom Clark is a maybe but hopefully… Continue

I've made some progress this week though not as much as this week. I talked to the Nevada Environmental Protection division and am hoping to get one of their technical people on the panel. I need to e-mail Sierra Pacific to get their project managers up here. I've set a date April 29 at 6 p.m. and will add an event to the new events page as soon as I get the panelists and some more people confirmed. I got a quote on the refreshments catering. I have to make an appointment with the journalism… Continue

I am completely stoked about this new update. Check out the first half to see the amazing new Events page we'll be getting Thursday or Friday.
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The most important difference between this and Facebook events is the ability to export it to your iCal or Outlook. Once this is installed, I'll transfer all the old events over. As for t… Continue

In one week I've gotten much further on the coal forum coordination than I expected. I've made contact with Sierra Pacific and the attorney general who are awaiting a confirmed date and "what do we do?" from me. I'm waiting to hear back from the Joe so I can set a date (sometime in the last two weeks of April). Once I get a date and tell those two people and I can go to Harry Reid's people and tell him the dates and that important people will be there. It's a weird domino effect. I have three… Continue

After talking to John Sagebiel about the new coal power plant issue, we came up with some questions that must be answered in order to really validate the whole destructive, polluting, inefficient plants. If it takes 108 million gallons of water a month (1.3 billion a year) for one power plant and there are two, where does all the water come from in a drought state? If one power plant will produce 10.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 3,044 tons of nitrogen oxides, 3,044 tons of sulfuric… Continue

As I study journalism and politics throughout history and get more involved with the public I'm noticing an interesting evolution in the great American democratic experiment. There's an emphasis on citizen politics more than ever before, manifested in citizen journalism, citizen diplomats, hyper-local political participation (this is not new and arguably less than active than in the past) and other groups, corporations and etc. who w… Continue

I asked several of my sources about the budding environmental trend on campus. I couldn't fit it into my larger story in The Nevada Sagebrush, but I think it's definitely some really interesting information. Below are some responses I received Associate Director of the Academy for the Environment, Jen Huntleysmith: "In my work, general public interest in environmental activism is a pretty recent phenomena here in Reno generally and UNR particularly, compared to a lot of other communities… Continue

So we couldn't be more timely with the launch of this site and the new Environmental Action Team (E-Team go!). From some of my academic sources, I've noticed three major trends in relation to the environment on campus(es). 1)The environment is an interdisciplinary topic - this may be a "duh" but as one of the new members of the E-Team said, the environment often appears as a special topic for sandle-wearing, beard toting hippies who don't clean themselves often if ever. Yet, we see envir… Continue

I've decided to start keeping track of my progress with the project as a record and as a way to let you all know how I'm doing and to allow you to offer suggestions or sources to any of the stories. Here's a rough timeline of my story ideas and how I plan to assemble a green series for The Nevada Sagebrush. 1) Where are we at? -What progress has the university made in respect to the environment - buildings, initiatives, departments, majors, etc. -Where do students fit into this progress… Continue