Thriving with less this holiday season

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The extremes of America’s culture of excess were on display this past weekend, with the madness of holiday shopping. But do people really need all that stuff? That’s the question some students at Michigan State University set out to answer.  Earlier this year a group of them at the East Lansing campus decided to live a more minimal and sustainable lifestyle. They filmed the experience. The film and project, called Thrive With Less, started as a capstone for a documentary course.

Climate

Chestnut farmers cope with lower yields

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Michigan’s chestnut growers are facing the same problems other fruit growers confront this year.

The early surge of temperatures in March and the inevitable cold weather in April and May curtailed nut production, just as it did for apples and cherries.

Stalled Great Lakes energy projects seek relief through NAFTA

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U.S. based companies stymied from developing new energy sources in the Great Lakes region by Canadian authorities are looking for relief through the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to media reports. A wind company owned by a New York-based investment group is filing a claim for lost profits under NAFTA, Thestar.com reports. Windstream Energy LLC wants to develop a 300-megawatt wind project in eastern Lake Ontario. That project stalled after Canada’s Liberal government put a moratorium on offshore projects. Meanwhile, another American company says it will sue Canadian federal authorities under NAFTA for more than $250 million for Quebec’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, the Windsor Star reports.