ModeShift - Part 26

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 …

Water Supply And Reason Are Priorities in New U.S. – China Climate Agreement

by Keith SchneiderNovember 15, 2014November 15, 20140

NEW DELHI, India — There are nearly 1.3 billion people in this swarming democracy, where over 66 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the general election last May. A few of them took me aside this week to express surprise at the puzzle that is the American electorate and its national leadership. It’s easy to see why. On November 4, despite the most money ever spent in a national election ($US 3.7 billion), just …

Surrounded By Water, Ohio River Valley Experiences Economic Resurgence

by Keith SchneiderNovember 5, 2014November 9, 20140

OWENSBORO, KY. — Randy Simes, an urban planner in Cincinnati with a keen sense of observation, founded UrbanCincy.com in 2007 to report on the transitional neighborhoods, evolving culture, and reviving post-industrial economy of his native Queen City of nearly 300,000 residents. But it wasnâ€™t until he posted before-and-after-pictures from Google Street View last May, comparing changes in well-known Cincinnati street corners from 2007 to 2013, that Simesâ€™ neighbors and colleagues embraced his boosterish view that …

Earth Pushes Back – Hard

by Keith SchneiderNovember 3, 2014November 4, 20140

Thereâ€™s nothing demur about Mother Earth these days. Sheâ€™s fuming and pushing back hard. Very hard. The Ebola emergency that began in West Africa and has since spread to two more continents has produced 5,000 deaths and is accelerating. Deep droughts engulf Brazilâ€™s largest city and Americaâ€™s largest state. Hurricanes drowned two major American cities since 2005. The 2013 Philippines typhoon killed 6,250 people. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed 228,000 people. A tsunami in …

Do Republicans Hate Cities? Generally Yes

by Keith SchneiderOctober 22, 2014October 22, 20144

NEW YORK — In the evenings the sidewalks along First Avenue, between 10th and Houston Streets, are a jammed bustle of young people crowded into bars, lined up for tables at good restaurants, or walking fast with heads bowed and faces lit by incoming smart phone texts. First Avenue, like so many other neighborhoods in New York, is a tableau of urban revival, an example of what happens when smart investments and informed entrepreneurism foster …

White Plains High School 40th Reunion

by Keith SchneiderOctober 21, 2014October 23, 20149

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — “So who’d you see?” my mother asked. We’d just sipped from our drinks – hers a nice white wine, mine an imported German beer — at a fine restaurant on 84th and Madison. “A lot of people you know,” I said. Recalling names by neighborhood I diligently listed all of the fun, accomplished, and at times trouble making friends that she knew back in the day. “Eddie Weil and Lisa Schwatertzenberg. …

Corvette Museum’s Crushed Cars, Closing Sinkhole As American Metaphor

by Keith SchneiderOctober 10, 2014October 10, 20140

BOWLING GREEN, KY. — Seven months after a sinkhole opened in the wee hours in a wing of the National Corvette Museum, collapsing a concrete floor and swallowing eight sports cars, museum executives in September announced they would fill the hole, repair two cars, and move on. In every way, the Earth’s swift unbuttoning of the ground, the muddy ruin it caused to valuable machines, the attention the injury-free event attracted, and the decision to …

Showing Off Circle of Blue Colleagues and Reporting in Traverse City

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 30, 2014September 30, 20141

TRAVERSE CITY, MI — On Wednesday evening October 8, 2014 Circle of Blue, the Traverse City-based global news organization, is inviting colleagues and friends to meet our talented staff and learn about the state-of-the-art multimedia work we are doing that is changing the world. This is no exaggeration. And while Circle of Blue has developed expertise and new digital tools to report on the consequences of the fierce global contest for natural resources, the successes …