ModeShift - Part 16

Gina Lopez, Philippines Environment Secretary Who Closed Polluting Mines, Is Dead

by Keith SchneiderAugust 19, 2019August 19, 20191

Only the good die young. I learned today that Gina Lopez, the former Philippines environment secretary, died today of brain cancer at the age of 65. Two years ago, on assignment for Mongabay and China Dialogue, I spent several weeks with Gina in the Philippines as she fought to preserve her position in the face of reckless opposition from that country’s mining industry. She’d ordered most of the country’s open pit mines shut down because …

Lessons From The Garden

by Keith SchneiderAugust 15, 2019June 19, 20223

BENZONIA — The tiger lilies are fading. But the pink blossoms of the rose of Sharon began to bloom this week. So did the blue blossoms of the butterfly bush. It’s mid-August. Just as in every month since early May when I raked the leaves out of the gardens, taking care not to injure the yellow daffodils, flowers are coming into view while others slip away. Odes to gardens and gardening almost always are exuberant …

Steve Sawyer, A Titan of Environmental Activism

by Keith SchneiderAugust 2, 2019August 19, 20192

Steve Sawyer, one of the great environmental activists and strategists of our era, died July 31 from cancer. It came as a shock. Steve was a classmate at Haverford College, a friend for 45 years, and a heroic figure to me in our shared allegiance to safeguard Mother Earth. Though his years were too short, what he accomplished in 63 has few peers. He was an important figure in stirring attention to the Earth’s deteriorating …

Will Americans Defend Our Democracy?

by Keith SchneiderApril 21, 2019April 21, 20192

SOMERSET, KY. — During the first week of March 2016, nine months after Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency, the Russian Federationâ€™s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), opened their online assault on American democracy. The Russian military intelligence unit began to hack, according to Robert Mueller’s special counsel report, “the computers and email accounts of organizations, employees, and volunteers supporting the Clinton campaign, including the email account of campaign …

Heroes of the Ohio River Valley

by Keith SchneiderApril 13, 2019May 19, 20190

MARIETTA, OHIO – My definition of a hero is someone who defies convention, dares to challenge the powerful, does well by the public good, and deepens their own sense of purpose. I’ve crossed the paths of a number of these select individuals over the years, written about quite a few of them, and earned sufficient trust to call a handful of them my friends. Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior in the 1960s — one …

Coastal Louisianaâ€™s Garden of Alligators, Zydeco, and Conservation

by Keith SchneiderApril 6, 2019May 19, 20191

LAFAYETTE, LA â€”Avery Island, which draws its name from a family that settled here in the 1830s, is renowned for the Tobasco hot sauce brand that Edmund McIlhenny invented after planting pepper seeds amidst the live oaks in 1865. Another historic breakthrough credited to the family is the work his son, Edward Avery McIlhenny, accomplished in safeguarding much of the islandâ€™s subtropical landscape as a conservation preserve and especially with the rookery he built to …

Confrontation of The Century – Gas vs. Renewables

by Keith SchneiderMarch 16, 2019March 16, 20190

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Last September California affirmed its commitment to supply all of the state’s annual demand for electricity with renewable sources of energy by 2045. New Mexico enacted similar 100 percent renewable legislation. This month Minnesota pledged to be the third U.S. state to achieve 100 percent renewable electrical generation, committing to do so by 2050. The three states are joined by nine other states considering the 100 percent commitment, and 100 American …

Marian Gyr, Benzonia’s Grand Lady, Lived 97 Storied Years

by Keith SchneiderMarch 11, 2019August 19, 201910

BENZONIA, MI — For a long while, many years in fact, Marian Gyr disdained the mobility afforded by motorized vehicles. She walked. Everywhere. Even in the blowing snow and drifts of winter. Everybody I know here in our little village, on a rise close to Lake Michigan, has a Marian Gyr walking story. She was well into her 80s, with two reconstructed hips, and still walking far from where she slept. How many times — …

The Ohio River Again At Center of Seminal Industrial Transition

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 4, 2019June 23, 20210

SOMERSET, KY — Ever since I reported and completed a project to suggest a new development strategy for Owensboro, KY. — and met and married one of the city’s great and beautiful civic leaders –I’ve been fascinated by the evolution of the Ohio River Valley. See a ModeShift archive here. Every economic era in American history opened along the river’s banks. Most of those that closed also weakened and died on a river that stretches …

TII: This Is Italy, A Beautiful Den of Thieves

by Keith SchneiderDecember 31, 2018January 1, 20197

SOMERSET, KY — A traveler’s story. One I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It was 6:30 p.m. about 12 hours before our scheduled flight home from Rome to Chicago. Gabrielle, Maggie, and I had just gotten off the train from Florence and I was exchanging dollars for euros at the central Rome station. The shoulder bag I’ve carried across six continents lay on the floor at my feet. Inside was $1,000 cash, my camera, glasses, IPad, …