Daily Detroit News Byte

Well, it's cold out. Anyone noticed? If you're like us, you no doubt noticed the emergency push alert sent to your mobile device Wednesday night, asking you to dial back your thermostats as the temperatures outside were heading to record subzero lows. On today's show, we talk about what happened to precipitate that push alert — a fire at a Consumers Energy natural gas storage and compression plant in Macomb County, its largest — and how it illustrates how vulnerable our infrastructure is to climate change. We suspect things will only get worse, if the forecasts for a big thaw by this weekend prove true. Staying with infrastructure, because we're nerds like that, we run down a new proposal from a bipartisan group of former politicians to raise Michigan's gas tax to help fund road repairs. Our interview today is with Alexandra Schmidt, public engagement director with the Center for Michigan and a reporter at Bridge Magazine. She tells us about the "think-and-do" tank's new report, "Michigan's Moment of Truth."