Minnesota 2020

09/26/2014

Energy efficiency is actually working against scaling up renewable and clean energy.

Drafting and passing effective public policies is a tricky business that often ends with unexpected and potentially counterproductive results. Sometimes this is a reflection of our lack of understanding of the causes of specific human, environmental, or economic behavior that we seek to alter. Other…

09/25/2014

This one's a heavyweight slugfest between the railroads and the giants of U.S. agriculture and industry.

It's been a while since an oil train exploded anywhere in America, so the red-hot controversy over shipping North Dakota crude by rail has cooled, only to be replaced by another involving the Engine that Divides Us. This one's a heavyweight slugfest between the railroads and the giants of U.S. agric…

09/24/2014

From an economic viewpoint, however, the current spark of solar energy development does show a marriage of increasingly popular objectives with enlightened public policy.

Minnesotans are squinting up at the sun and leaning into the wind in efforts to link their pocketbooks and the natural environment to benefit both from clean energy development and economic development.

09/23/2014

A few photos from this morning's release of our 2014 property tax report. You can find the whole report here: http://bit.ly/1oggHB4

09/23/2014

Senator John Marty will be joining us today for the release of our 2014 property tax report. We'll be at the State Capitol at 10:30 am, room 15, and touring throughout the state this week. An online version will be available at 10:30.

09/22/2014

The new model has merely adopted an additional strain of old industrial practices, relying on simplistic quantitative measurements to incentivize and punish job performance.

When looking at teacher accountability, we’ve experienced many turbulent changes in the past few years. Unfortunately, they aren’t likely to have nearly the impact some are hoping for. One problem? They don’t do enough to professionalize teaching.

09/21/2014

We are live at WCCO Radio for an education roundtable with Michael Diedrich

09/19/2014

Our executive director, Steve Fletcher, provides some insight into what he experienced during the recent Twin Cities Startup Week.

Prompted by last week’s Tuesday Talk, I spent most of the last week attending “Twin Cities Startup Week” events, including the Tech Startup Crawl, MinneDemo (a kind of tech show and tell at the Riverview Theater), Twin Cities Startup Weekend, and the CURA-Tech Demo (which technically wasn’t part of…

09/19/2014

Happy Friday. So, what is making you happy? We asked our staff to share with you some of their favorite stories.

http://mn2020hindsight.org/view/friday-reads-from-the-minnesota-2020-staff1

What's making you happy this week? Every Friday we like to put together a list of stories we are enjoying. Here are the top picks from the staff of MN 2020.

09/18/2014

A few photos from the shoot for today's video on honey bees. They sure loved our boom mic!

09/18/2014

We headed to the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History to learn more about bees and what humans can do to help. As we learn, one way is to simply plant different types of flowers.

09/18/2014

Focusing on the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists may be the low-hanging fruit in the quest for a less deadly surface transportation system.

From 2003 through 2012, more than 47,000 Americans were fatally injured while walking along streets or roads, about 16 times the toll of the 9/11 terrorist attacks or that from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes over the same decade. In that span, an estimated 676,000 pedestrians suffered…