Today, President Obama announced his nominee for Supreme Court to replace Justice Stevens. No surprise to Fresh Dialogues readers: it’s Elena Kagan. So what might she mean for the environment and green tech?
On April 1st, just days before Justice Stevens announced his retirement, I sat down with Jeffrey Toobin to discuss the environmental record of the Supreme Court and the likely pick for Justice Stevens replacement. Toobin didn’t skip a beat: Elena Kagan. In this interview from the Fresh Dialogues archives, Toobin explains why Obama favored Kagan over the other well qualified candidates for the post and speculates about her green credentials.
“She’s former Dean of Harvard Law School (Obama’s alma mater), very much an Obama type person – moderate Democrat, a consensus builder…”
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Is Elena Kagan an environmentalist?
“My sense is that it’s not an issue that has come across her plate a lot…she’s someone who has written on administration law which tends to mean she’s a believer in the power of the Federal Government to regulate.” Jeffrey Toobin
The interview took place at Dick Henning’s Foothill College Celebrity Forumin Silicon Valley on April 1, 2010. For more Fresh Dialogues interviews with business leaders and experts check out Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel
For more on Elena Kagan’s green credentials: check out this article at Grist.org
And here is an ARCHIVE of interviews with Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman, KR Sridhar and many others
I caught up with Twitter officianado, Adam Jacksonat SDForum’s Teens Plugged in Conference last year. Since then, he’s founded TweetForMyBiz, a social media consultancy, based in San Francisco.
Moderator at this year’s conference, Mike Cassidy wrote an excellent column in the San Jose Mercury News about how teens embrace fearlessness in Silicon Valley. He writes:
“Tech CEOs have done plenty of hand-wringing about our schools’ declining ability to turn out the thinkers we need to keep innovation robust…The young entrepreneurs at the SDForum conference don’t make those worries go away, but they are a reason to hold onto hope. They are a generation that embraces the optimism, fearlessness and drive that have built Silicon Valley.”
Adam Jackson, who uprooted from Florida to San Francisco to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams as a young teen, is a great example of this fearlessness.
In this interview from the Fresh Dialogues archives, Adam talks about how to become a green influencer.
“If you have an idea to be more green, help the earth, then go for it, and try it out. See what happens and talk about it. That’s how you become an influencer, that’s how you become an expert. It’s not by re-quoting other people’s things. Or by trying to figure it out, maybe dabbling in it. You just have to jump head first.”
SDForum attendees got a glimpse of the future last Friday. Microsoft hosted the 4th Annual SDForum Teens Conference – an assembly of some of the most dynamic and creative young minds in Silicon Valley.
I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of high energy high school students who are using technology to pursue their dreams of, well, simply: changing the world. Why not indeed?
Katherine Nasol, a junior at Notre Dame High School, who aims to eradicate child trafficking in the Philippines through her Pagkabata Project, put it best:
“In a time where youth have a bad reputation of going on Facebook all day and spending most of our time playing video games, this conference challenges that notion. Youth have the power to do anything, whether it be building a global network or changing the world views to care for the environment.”
Her colleagues were equally impressive, from Emily Gran, who wants the world to take action in response to climate change (and has created a high school syllabus to trigger that change); to Daniel Brusilovsky who founded Teens in Tech Networksto help launch young entrepreneurs in business (and wants to replace Steve Jobs at Apple when he grows up – there will be no stopping this guy !); to Veronica Hume and Diana Chen who have created the GirlsForTech site to connect techie girls around the world; to Emily Munoz and Natalie Hon,Freestyle Academy students, who made a documentary about the importance of arts education in schools.
Panelists include, from the left: Diana Chen (Mountain View) , Veronica Hume (St. Francis), Katherine Nasol (Notre Dame), Emily Gran (Menlo Atherton) and Daniel Brusilovski (Aragon) and not photographed: Emily Munoz (Mountain View) and Nathalie Hon (Los Altos). Moderator: Alison van Diggelen
For more Fresh Dialogues interviews with teens, click here and check out our full archiveof interviews with Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman, Martin Sheen et al.
On the Eve of Earth Day, it’s telling to look at the green motivations of one of Silicon Valley’s leaders in solar technology: CEO of Akeena Solar, Barry Cinnamon. He’s been a solar advocate since the 1970’s when he studied the science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); however, he’s emphatic in his belief: economics trumps environmental arguments for going solar. So much so, that Cinnamon chose to avoid the color green in his company logo and vehicles.
What motivated Cinnamon to explore solar energy in the 1970’s?
“In the 1970’s we had the energy crisis and …(President) Jimmy Carter said ‘the energy crisis is the moral equivalent of war.’ …there was no environmental consciousness about fossil fuels being bad; nobody had ever heard of Green House Gases…We were all worried about nuclear winter.”
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On becoming a green entrepreneur
“It was a really FEEL GOOD THING….We knew we were doing the right thing for the environment…”
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On the economics of going solar
“Customers want to do it for the environment or for our country’s energy independence….but if the numbers don’t pencil out, they almost never do it…you’ve got to make a decent economic case.”
. How does “belief” in Global Warming alter the sales pitch?
“Some people don’t ‘believe’ it, and it’s a religious thing…’green’ works well in the Bay Area….but (elsewhere) customers would avoid a company who’s main pitch is green…but if you hit them with the economic argument or the energy independence argument – we don’t need to buy any energy from the Persian Gulf – it works just fine.”
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Could there be a repeat of the 1970’s boom then bust in alternative energy?
“In the 70’s/early 80’s, the crisis went away, tax credits went away…if energy prices suddenly plummeted again….it’ll happen again. We don’t have the political will to artificially support oil or gas prices….(but) because the world demand for oil and gas is so high and the supply is generally limited…economics is going to reduce the chances that it will happen again…but it’s not impossible.”
Fresh Dialogues(TM) is an interview series with a green focus: Fresh Questions, Fresh Answers. This video interview took place at Foothill College Celebrity Forum on April 1, 2010, just one week before Justice Stevens announced his retirement. Check out the new Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channelmore exclusive interviews.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN:Hello and welcome. Today on Fresh Dialogues: Jeffrey Toobin.
Jeffrey – thank you so much for joining me on Fresh Dialogues. Let’s go on to your specialty: The Supreme Court. In 2009, they decided against environmentalists in a lot of cases…
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Six out of six.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: Yes. What are your thoughts on that, moving forward? Is this going to continue…this anti-environmental stance of the Supreme Court?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: I think that the court as currently constituted will likely continue in that direction. I don’t think it’s a particular hostility to the environment per se. I think it is a general sympathy for corporate defendants in all cases, environmental cases being one category of cases where the corporations are the defendants. They are also generally – the conservative majority – fairly hostile to government regulatory efforts…and the environment is one area, not the only area. So if the court stays as it currently is, I think you’ll see a lot more cases like that.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: So would you say, it’s moving more pro-business?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Clearly
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: And the environment losing out as a result?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: That’s certainly how the environmentalists see it.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: And how do you see it?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Again, not a field of great expertise of mine, but I see who wins the cases and who loses them. And it’s the polluters who keep winning.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: And what about the future? Justice Stevens is due to retire shortly…
JEFFREY TOOBIN: He hasn’t said so officially but I think he will retire this Spring.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: So how is that going to change things? What are your predictions?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: I think he is a key member of the liberal four on the court, he will likely be replaced by another liberal. So in terms of the outcome of cases in the next few years, probably not a huge impact, but I often like to quote Byron Whitethe late Justice,who said if you change one Justice, you don’t just change one Justice, you change the whole court. If you start to have an energized liberal group of young – by Supreme Court standards -Justices like Sonia Sotomayor, like the next Obama appointee, the wind could start to be at their back. And if Obama gets re-elected, you could see more appointments…so it’s a big deal.
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: And who is your No. 1 candidate for that appointment?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: Elena Kagan, the Solicitor General, former Dean of Harvard Law School. Very much an Obama type person – moderate Democrat, a consensus builder…
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: Do you know if she’s an environmentalist?
JEFFREY TOOBIN: I don’t… I just don’t know. My sense is, it’s just not an issue that has come across her plate a lot…she is someone who has written on administration law, which tends to mean she’s a believer in the power of the Federal Government to regulate. But I wouldn’t…
A – I don’t know what she thinks…and B – I don’t…
A is enough. I don’t know what she thinks about these issues…(laughter)
ALISON VAN DIGGELEN: (laughter) OK. Jeffrey Toobin I really appreciate your taking the time for Fresh Dialogues.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: My pleasure. Nice to see you.
For more Fresh Dialogues Video interviews click here
