Timothy DenHerder-Thomas

Timothy DenHerder-Thomas: Green economy innovator, youth leader—"Timothy DenHerder-Thomas is a senior at Macalester College in St. Paul pursuing an interdisciplinary Environmental Studies major that focuses on taking community sustainability to the global level. In 2006, Timothy helped found the Clean Energy Revolving Fund, which supports self-financing sustainability projects at Macalester College. He has taken these efforts off-campus through residential energy efficiency, facilitating the formation and operation of Cooperative Energy Futures, a new community-based energy efficiency cooperative. He has served as a visionary and convener for statewide and national inter-campus energy-saving competitions, a Minnesota state network of student sustainability groups, and the Summer of Solutions: www.summerofsolutions.org. Timothy now serves on the Steering Committee of the Energy Action Coalition and on the Executive Committee of the Sierra Student coalition. He is a Young People For Fellow, a Morris K. Udall Scholar, a Goldman Sachs Global Leader, and a recent recipient of the 2008 Brower Youth Award."

How did you get involved in the community? Were you asked to join by editors at the Star Tribune, or was there some kind of application process?
The Star Trib invited me to become a writer

Do you get paid to post? How often do you post?
I do not get paid to post. I have usually posted about once a week, but less recently due to busyness. I'm told that once a week is near minimum, but several bloggers post less

Are you given specific topics to blog about?
Sometimes the Star Trib suggests topics for me to post on, which are encouraged but optional, but mostly I do my own posting.

What do you think are the benefits of posting?
I use posting to get the word out about action and issues that I'm involved in around climate and energy. It is also is really useful in terms of promoting citizen journalism and democratizing info flows.

Do you blog outside of the Your Voices blog? If not, why did you want to join this blogging community?
I blog on around 7 blogs, mostly affiliated with climate/ energy solutions leaders

Do you think there are any professional conflicts to your posting? In other words, do you think the views expressed in your posts should be seen separately from the views of your employer? Why or why not? Do you think readers can differentiate between the two views?
By "My employer" do you mean the Star Trib? I am not a Star Trib employee and write posts as a volunteer. I think that's pretty clear to the audience.

Do your posts get edited by someone at the Star Tribune?
I have never seen a post edited by the Star Trib, although they might proofread them.

I saw that the comments are moderated. Do you think more people would post comments if they weren't approved before being published?
Unsure about the comments. The Star Trib mostly moderates extremely caustic attack comments, which interestly seem to be many of those posted.

Do you see the community as an important addition to traditional journalism/newspapers?
Yes, I think blogging communities are very important to traditional journalism, since it provides diversity of perspective and access to stories that traditional media wouldn't cover. Traditional media (including the Star Trib) is also struggling these days.

What do you think makes you unique from the other bloggers?
I'm unique because I am a student activist building a career creating climate and energy solutions by creating local economic opportunities through clean energy and energy efficiency at the community level.

(bio, photo courtesy Star Tribune)