Will Alternative Energy Technology bring the Greenback to Michigan’s Economy?
By Sherry Underwood 28, November 2010

“The opportunity to create new Michigan jobs rests overwhelmingly with the clean energy, green-collar economy. We know the combination of these targeted efforts, coupled with the determination of Michigan’s workers’ to embrace the green economy, will help transform our state.” Michigan Green Jobs Report 2009 Occupations & Employment in the New Green Economy

On Thursday November 18, 2010, Oakland Community Colleges Student LIFE and OCCSustainability groups hosted Stanley “Skip” Pruss at the Smith Theatre on the Orchard Ridge Campus as he presented his lecture Is Sustainability the Key to Michigan’s Economic Recovery?. Mr. Pruss was most recently the director of Michigan’s newly established Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth and Michigan’s Chief Energy Officer, and served as Governor Granholm’s Special Advisor for Renewable Energy and the Environment, as well as the Deputy Director of the Department of Environmental Quality. Mr. Pruss has just been appointed to advise United States Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu. His lecture, Is Sustainability the Key to Michigan’s Economic Recovery? was warmly received by both students and facility. During the address, Mr. Pruss cited issues other than greenhouse gas emission that threaten our world like, depletion of marine stock, soil erosion, ground water withdrawals, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. However, Mr. Pruss was quite clear that global warming is “the mother of all sustainability issues of the century” as he presented an unequivocal case for the reality of global warming. Pruss points out that Climate Science is extremely well studied and that of over 1,200 published and peer reviewed Scientists in the field, 98 percent of them have reached “extraordinary scientific consensus”