Sen. Bingaman to Address Climate Change Tomorrow; NDN's Green Summer

As climate change, energy prices, and the impact of the “Third Oil Shock” on the American and global economies continue to make front page news every day and change the way we live, NDN’s Green Project is excited to announce a series of events and thought-provoking papers examining these critical issues over the next month.

Building on previous work in the green space, including a forum in New York City entitled, Understanding the Cleantech Investment Opportunity, and talks by energy expert Amory Lovins and electric car innovator Shai Agassi, NDN’s upcoming Green Project will be offering some thoughts on intellectual underpinnings for building the post-carbon economy.

We kick off this important and timely series on Wednesday, July 9, on Capitol Hill with U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (NM), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and one of our nation's foremost leaders on energy, who has chosen NDN to host his next address on climate change. This event will start at 8 a.m. in 325 Russell Senate Office Building. Click here to RSVP.

NDN will also be releasing an important new paper by NDN Green Project Director Michael Moynihan entitled, Solar Power: The Case for Action. In this paper, Moynihan places solar energy in the context of major changes needed to our energy policies, including how to reinvent our national economy to cope with high energy prices and increase our technological competitiveness in a post-carbon future.

On Wednesday, July 16, Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, Chairman of the NDN Globalization Initiative, will host a lunch for the NDN community on his new paper, Addressing Climate Change without Impairing the U.S. Economy: The Economics and Environmental Science of Combining a Carbon-Based Tax and Tax Relief, which details a strategy for implementing a carbon tax and using 90 percent of the revenue to cut the payroll tax. The lunch will be held at 12:30 p.m. at NDN: 729 15th St. NW, 1st floor. For more information or to RSVP, contact Kevin VanderMolen at kvandermolen@ndn.org or 202-384-1216.

On Saturday, July 19, in Austin, Texas, Michael Moynihan will join NDN President Simon Rosenberg and Andrei Cherny at Netroots Nation in speaking on A New Era of Possibility—Looking at America's Role in the World after the Bush Presidency.

Finally, NDN has an event in the works to examine the impact of high energy prices on such important elements of the economy as the auto industry, transportation, aviation, the exurbs and, indeed, the American Way of Life. Please stay posted for more details.

Do not miss these events that together will help develop our understanding of the impact of climate change and energy policy on our nation. To read NDN’s latest thinking on these issues, check out the Green Project blog.