The environment and innovation seem to go hand in hand these days. If we talk about cars, we're talking electrics or hybrids. If we talk about power, most times we're talking about wind or some other generator that isn't coal or oil. So it's a no-brainer that when we talk Michigan, both of those things are present. Michigan's natural environment, and it's natural ability to be a leader in innovation, are on the same path to rebooting the state's economy.
Excerpt:
Michigan has for a century been defined by its environment and its commerce. It has enduring natural beauty critical to the state's future and a boom-and-bust economy that reliably produces shocks to the system.
While they occasionally conflict, the two have never meshed so that when someone thinks of Michigan, one thing comes to mind.
Not many states can be viewed through opposite prisms. But consider Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the eastside Detroit Packard Motors plant still standing, in advancing decay, 50 years after it stopped producing cars. Michigan residents identify with their lakeshores. Those on the outside conjure images of industrial blight.
What's becoming clear is that the demands of environmental care and the capacity of our technological prowess to address them offer the chance to finally merge Michigan's split personality.
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