Keith Schneider | ModeShift

Grassroots Opposition To Wind Energy Receives Scholarly Assessment

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 27, 2011March 17, 20110

Roopali Phadke was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government from 2003 to 2005 when an intensifying civic struggle over a developer’s proposal to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm in Cape Cod caught her attention. The battle line between supporters and opponents was readily apparent. But the soldiers filling out the ranks of the opposition leadership were especially confounding. They included Senator Ted Kennedy, one of the nation’s most influential liberal …

Memo to Hu and Obama: Water and Energy Choke Points Merit Time at the China-U.S. Summit

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 18, 2011January 26, 20110

Washingtonâ€™s foreign policy community is all aflutter anticipating the meaning and outcome of Chinese President Hu Jintaoâ€™s three-day summit with U.S. President Barack Obama, which starts today. But while the two heads of state focus on resolving what pries them apart, both nations share a dangerous confrontation within their borders over energy demand and water supplyâ€”offering a matchless opportunity for new kinds of cooperation on policy, technology, business, and trade. The collision between rising energy …

Amid Turbulence A Path For Climate Action

by Keith SchneiderNovember 10, 2010November 10, 20100

Maybe things aren’t as dismaying as we thought a week ago. Or just a little less in the dismay department. In the last few days, two of the prominent names in American politics and business appeared to reach consistent conclusions about governing, technology, and the warming climate. On Friday, Karl Rove told an audience of natural gas developers in Texas that “climate is gone” as a Congressional issue. And this week, in a Rolling Stone …

Why Can’t U.S. and China Just Get Along in Tianjin? Answer Is They Are

by Keith SchneiderOctober 13, 2010October 13, 20103

TIANJIN, China â€” On Monday, two days after the UNFCCC climate conference ended after six days of grudging negotiation, the sky above this busy city turned blue, the sun appeared for the first time in a week, and Tianjinâ€™s angled skyline, not visible previously in the thick smog, appeared like a gleaming glass and steel mountain range. The beautiful warm day not only brought a fresh focus to just how earnest China is in building …

Talk of Tianjin Climate Conference: China and U.S. Are Electrifying The Car

by Keith SchneiderOctober 11, 2010October 11, 20101

TIANJIN, China – Whatever the differences that irked delegates from China and the United States during the six days of climate negotiations that ended here on Saturday, divisions principally defined by how each would control carbon emissions and measure progress, the unmistakable conclusion reached by most of the delegates and participants is how closely tied the two nations are to each the other. Lying quietly below the nuanced diplomatic language of frustration and distrust expressed …

In Tianjin, China and the U.S. Look A Lot Alike

by Keith SchneiderOctober 5, 2010October 5, 20101

On opposite sides of the Pacific, leaders of the world’s two biggest economies and carbon polluters are plainly thinking about clean energy to power up their economies and cool the climate. In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced their intention to extend vehicle efficiency standards that went into effect in April in order meet a national goal of 60 miles per gallon average fuel economy by 2025. President …

In Tianjin, Making A Small Dent On Climate Action

by Keith SchneiderOctober 3, 2010February 3, 20110

TIANJIN, China — I’m in Tianjin, China today (see pix above) and for the next week to report on the UN Climate Conference, the first ever held in China. I spent much of the day in a Climate Action International meeting with activists from around the planet, though there were many fewer here than attended the UN climate meetings in Barcelona and Copenhagen last year. Everybody is talking about steps forward and preserving the UN …

Copenhagen’s Fallout: Senate Drops Climate Action From Energy Bill

by Keith SchneiderJuly 22, 2010September 9, 20100

Until December 2009, the idea of acting to cool the Earth was on a roll. High points included 2007 Nobel Prizes for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s breakthrough science and for Al Gore’s astonishing work to elevate global warming to an international priority, They also included Barack Obama’s winning 2008 presidential election, and the formation of global online grassroots activism led byÂ 350.org and TckTckTck, a project of the Global Campaign For Climate …

Climategate Is Over, The Moment to Act on Warming and Energy is Here

by Keith SchneiderJuly 8, 20100

As cities on the East Coast sweltered in the sort of dispiriting record-breaking heat that climate scientists accurately predicted, the Obama administration’s lawyers were in a federal appellate court in New Orleans today to reinstate the moratorium on deep sea oil and gas exploration the Interior Department issued in May. Last month a federal district judge with investment interests in the energy industry struck down the temporary ban on new drilling. It’s been that kind …

Science Vindicated as Senate Edges Toward Climate and Energy Debate

by Keith SchneiderJuly 7, 2010July 7, 20100

The 20-year global campaign to cool the planet, one of the most influential civic movements in human history, was built on two points of reference. The first is visible evidence on every continent of escalating temperatures, melting ice, more ferocious storms, fiercer droughts, and deadlier floods. The second is the wealth of scientific data that proves Mother Nature’s erratic behavior is no accident. It’s the result of the combustion of fossil fuels that is steadily …