ModeShift

Until a ferocious drought withered crops, turned rivers to trickles, and dried up municipal drinking water supplies, one of Limpopo province’s distinctions was the ample sun and good soil that made it South Africa’s premier producer of fruits and vegetables. Another distinction was that farmers developed an informal accord to share scarce water with coal companies that were busy developing the Waterberg Coalfield that lies beneath dry central Limpopo. This week Yale Environment 360, the …

FLINT, MI —FLINT, MI – Before Barack Obama spent the afternoon in this tormented post-industrial Michigan city last week, the last president that visited Flint was Gerald Ford. That was 1974, just a few months after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. Flint in the 1970s provided the vital equipment, and perfectly reflected the auto-oriented, resource-abundant, mobile American way of life nearly half a century ago. General Motors employed 80,000 people in its Flint car and …

It’s been nearly three years since I traveled in Uttarakhand, India to report on the aftermath of a murderous Himalayan flood that killed thousands of Hindu pilgrims and wrecked at least 10 big hydropower dams. Witnessing that much damage from an ecological event changed how I viewed the power of Mother Nature and the wrath she is exhibiting to human communities. It’s been nearly two years since I reported on how citizens in Assam, India …

OWENSBORO, KY— I made it. Tomorrow, April 19, 2016 is my 60th birthday. It feels great. Purposeful. Definitive. Fully engaged. Fun. Turning 60 means you’ve been around for awhile. If I were a kitchen I’d have been remodeled at least three times. If I were a maple tree I’d be 80 feet tall. If I were a blue whale, I’d weigh 150 tons. Turning 60 means that you’ve learned a few things. You learn that …