ModeShift - Part 25

Boquete, Panama Is Banquet of Coffee, Flowers, Water, and Rainbows

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 21, 2015March 24, 20152

BOQUETE, Panama — A mile high in the western highlands, near the border of Costa Rica and in the shadow of 3,474-meter (11,398 feet) Volcan Baru, a dormant volcano that is Panama’s tallest peak, lies a convergence of water, sun, soil, and altitude that produces superb coffee. The very same union of God-given natural bounty also yields a prodigious bounty of beautiful flowers and an afternoon banquet of rainbows that arc, mountain range to mountain …

Jim ‘Jet’ Neilson’s Panama Run

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 14, 2015January 14, 201513

PANAMA CITY, Panama — Jim ‘Jet’ Neilson is an American race car driver, born in California and raised in Hawaii, whose living and reputation is entirely based on a tool box of risky virtues. He designs, builds, and drives jet cars so powerful and fast that the main attraction of a Jim ‘Jet’ Neilson event — aiming a jet on wheels down a long straightaway — concludes in less time than it takes to sneeze. …

Panama’s Water-Rich Eden Confronts Snake’s Temptation

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 10, 2015March 24, 20155

PANAMA CITY, Panama â€“ Quebrada Ancha, a community that settled in Panama’s thick forest 50 years ago, lies at the northern end of Lago Alajuela, a freshwater lake built by the United States at the end of the Great Depression to control floods in the Panama Canal Zone. It takes 20 minutes in a fast 40-foot dugout boat to get there. In early morning’s luminous light and cooling breeze the trip is a passage across …

Worcester Redevelopment in the New York Times

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 7, 2015January 10, 20150

WORCESTER, Mass. — Though College of the Holy Cross was founded here in 1843, and eight other prominent institutions of higher learning followed, it’s taken most of the last two centuries for this sizable New England city to consider itself a college town. It does so now. From one end of the city’s 245-acre central core to the other, Worcesterâ€™s primary boulevards are steadily filling up with the civic equipment that is attracting new residents, …

U.S.-China Climate Agreement a Circle of Blue High Point

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 1, 2015January 10, 20150

Thereâ€™s no pretending that providing secure stores of fresh water, and producing adequate supplies of energy and food is confounding the nations of Earth.Â In the era of climate change most of the world’s prominent energy and food producing regions are either getting dryer or more hydrologically unstable. The consequence Is a growing list of global choke points â€“ the economically and ecologically disruptive confrontations over water, energy, and agricultural resources that Circle of Blue and …

Gabrielle Gray Shifts Over to Weave A New Story in American Bluegrass Music

by Keith SchneiderDecember 15, 2014December 16, 20143

OWENSBORO, KY — There was a big change today in American bluegrass music here in this Ohio River city, which over the last decade has established itself as a global center of the quintessential American music born in western Kentucky. The board of trustees of the International Bluegrass Music Museum announced that Gabrielle M. Gray,Â the museumâ€™s chief executive, ends her exceptional 12-year tenure as the museum’s capable and creative leader and steps down as …

Dream Big — Why Ohio River Valley Resurgence is Nationally and Globally Significant

by Keith SchneiderDecember 5, 2014June 23, 20211

OWENSBORO, KY — More than three years ago, while writing a study that suggested several new 21st century development ideas for this old river city, I discovered the mysteries of the Ohio River Valley. The region’s natural beauty is immediately striking. The recovering economies of cities and counties, once described as the Rust Belt, impress me. The unexpected governing approaches — cities passing new taxes as a development tool, and seeking consolidation with their surrounding …

This Is India — “Maybe Tomorrow”

by Keith SchneiderNovember 29, 2014December 1, 20143

GUWAHATI, India — Beggars prowl the sidewalks of every city I’ve visited — American, Scandinavian, Arabian, Australian, Asian. Still, there may be no more organized, encompassing, creative, and pathetic beggar culture in the world today than the one that operates in New Delhi, India’s capital. With 25 million residents, New Delhi is the world’s second largest city behind Tokyo, according to the United Nations. Seven years ago Delhi’s Social Welfare Department reported that nearly 59,000 …

Meghalaya’s Coal Shutdown Is Leaky, Testing Authority of Law and Court

by Keith SchneiderNovember 19, 2014November 25, 20140

JOWAI, India — On April 17, in a ruling that stunned miners, truckers, and owners in this region of black dust and rivers that run the colors of the rainbow, India’s National Green Tribunal ordered Meghalaya’s $US 650 million coal mining industry to shut down. Nothing like it had ever happened to the coal industry in India or anywhere else. Ruling that Meghalaya’s globally unique ‘rathole’ box mines were too dangerous and too dirty to …

India’s National Green Tribunal Challenges Government and Industry To Follow The Law

by Keith SchneiderNovember 17, 2014November 17, 20141

SHILLONG, India — India’s National Green Tribunal, a judicial body with legal authority that ranks just below India’s Supreme Court, is quickly emerging as one of the world’s most important forums for the idea that economic advancement is tightly wired to public safety, and the security of water, air, and land. Established by India’s Supreme Court and legislated into existence and a source of funding by Parliament in 2010, the new court gained a formidable …