ModeShift - Part 23

Earth Day At 47: Lessons For Sound Development

by Keith SchneiderApril 22, 2016April 22, 20161

OWENSBORO, KY — By now, the 47th observance of Earth Day, the point of summoning people to protect Mother Nature is clear. What started in 1970 as a call to action from the youthful wing of American society has matured into mainstream global operating principles for assuring that human life thrives in the 21st century. Essentially, that is what the founders of Earth Day anticipated. Earth Day was never just about preventing pollution or conserving …

Celebrating My 60th

by Keith SchneiderApril 18, 2016April 18, 20166

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 …

Bazooka Radebe Wild Coast Murder Yields No Suspects

by Keith SchneiderApril 18, 2016January 1, 20170

Nearly a month after gunmen assassinated Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Radebe, the leader of a community group that opposed a mine and new highway on South Africaâ€™s Wild Coast, the investigation has expanded but no suspects have been identified, according to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, South Africaâ€™s national police unit for investigating corruption and political and organized crime. â€œItâ€™s a murder case and we suspect thereâ€™s an element of organized crime,â€ Hlangwani Mulaudzi, the spokesman …

This Is South Africa

by Keith SchneiderApril 13, 2016April 15, 20161

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — There may be no other place on Earth where the land unfolds with such breathtaking beauty, where the green waves of KwaZulu-Natal valleys and the purple summits of Karoo desert ridges have such a powerful emotional lease. From the cold blue ocean waters of Cape Town to the limitless highveld expanses of Mpumalanga, South Africa’s geographic magnificence serves to both inspire this nation — and mock its racial divisions, government …

Karoo Uranium, Fossil Energy Development Defies Water Scarcity and Reason

by Keith SchneiderApril 10, 2016April 10, 20160

GRAAFF-REINET, South Africa â€“A contentious idea to use billions of gallons of scarce water to develop natural gas brought Stefan Cramer, a respected German-trained groundwater scientist, to settle in a 19th century cottage, with stucco walls and a mud and reed roof, near the center of South Africaâ€™s desert Karoo. A well-regarded hydrogeologist with decades of experience in some of the worldâ€™s important oil and gas fields, Cramer was dispatched to the Karoo two years …

Bazooka Radebe Murder and Funeral Fit South Africa’s Turmoil

by Keith SchneiderApril 3, 2016April 16, 20161

On Saturday, April 2, 2016 hundreds of mourners set out to a Pondo tribal settlement on South Africa’s Wild Coast to honor Sikhosiphi Radebe, the chairmanÂ of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, who was assassinated on March 22. Radebe and several more Crisis Committee leaders spent the last decade organizing Wild Coast villages and settlers in opposing a big titanium sands beach mine along the Indian Ocean coast. The committee also opposes a new freeway that would …

Kusile and Medupi, Conceived in Resource-Rich 20th Century, Struggle in Water-Scarce 21st

by Keith SchneiderMarch 29, 20160

EMALAHLENI, South Africa â€“ Not far from Johannesburg, set amid the corn and sunflower fields of the Highveld in Mpumalanga province, stand two unusually thick and tall candy-striped smokestacks, dozens of stout concrete support columns, and the tangled steel superstructure of the unfinished 4,800-megawatt Kusile coal-fired power station. About 370 kilometers (230 miles) northwest, spread across a stretch of dry scrubland in Limpopo province, is the construction site for Kusileâ€™s unfinished twin, the 4,800-megawatt Medupi …

South Africa Locks Onto Coal Despite Water Risks, Grim Market Trends

by Keith SchneiderMarch 25, 2016March 29, 20160

VRYHEID, South Africa — The chilly highland valleys of northern KwaZulu-Natal province, where coal mining and agriculture have coexisted since the late 19th century, have never been a geography of unfolding uncertainty, mystery, and menace like they are today. South Africa’s allegiance to coal mining and coal-fired power generation in an era of rising concern about water supply and quality, and weakening national and global demand, is causing a furor in the country’s mining sector, …

South Africa’s Impending Crop Failure

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 18, 2016February 18, 20160

PONGOLA, South Africa — On the last Friday of January, payday on the sugar cane farms of northern KwaZulu-Natal province, a hot sun beat down on the red clay of Cobus Horn’s equipment yard. Nduku Msimanga, taut and muscled as a welterweight boxer, waited there with three other tractor drivers to receive unusually meager pay stubs. Msimanga, who is 33 years old, supports two teenage boys, a seven-year-old girl, and his wife on the wages …

Robben Island’s Long Shadow of Justice

by Keith SchneiderFebruary 15, 2016February 16, 20161

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Barack Obama, America’s first black president, twice crossed the cold and deep 9-mile channel that lies between this magnificent coastal city and Robben Island, where South Africa imprisoned its first black president, Nelson Mandela. The last time Obama stood in the stone cell blocks and peered out of the barred windows was in June 2013, during a presidential visit to South Africa. Before that, in his first visit in 2006, …