ModeShift - Part 31

Torrent of Water and Big Questions Pour From Matchless Peaks of India’s Himalayan Region

by Keith SchneiderDecember 11, 2013January 4, 20144

OKUND, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA -Â We made the crossing at night from Chamoli, reaching this Himalayan foothill town after dark. The innkeeper, anxious for guests in a travel economy that came to a standstill in mid-June, cooked dal and nan bread for dinner and then showed us to a room that was unlit and unheated. It didn’t matter. Thick blankets kept us warm. And at dawn we awoke to strong black coffee and the sun lighting the …

BEIGIN 2013: A Conference That Thrilled Students, Stirred Lifelong Friendship

by Keith SchneiderNovember 26, 2013December 30, 20132

NEW YORK — Five years ago Linda Ragsdale, an artist and mother from Nashville, survived a terrrorist attack in Mumbai, India that killed 166 people. In a keynote speech at the BEIGIN H2O conference in Beijing, Linda described the orderly persistence of the attack on the hotel where she stayed. Not a soul stirred in the auditorium at the International School of Beijing as she recounted the sound, the smell, the sight of the gun …

At Yale, Peter Salovey’s Inauguration Heralds The Best of America

by Keith SchneiderOctober 15, 2013October 15, 20130

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The sound of trumpets and nearly 600 applauding guests greeted Peter Salovey and his wife, Marta Elisa Moret, as they arrived at the Yale University Commons on Saturday night for a sit-down celebratory dinner. The following afternoon Salovey, who is 55 years old and has spent his entire career at America’s third oldest university, was formally inaugurated as Yale’s 23rd president in a ceremony of music, oratory, and pageantry held at …

Government Shutdown, Default Reveal Fanaticism’s Depth

by Keith SchneiderOctober 10, 2013June 18, 20143

NEW YORK — This is the city and the new American experience that too many white suburban and rural voters loathe. Good leadership and smart taxpayer investments modernized the subways, scrubbed clean the shoreline, rebuilt Harlem, and turned Brooklyn into a multi-racial millennial hot spot for good jobs and housing. Crime is down, way down. City revenues are up. Voters here support an African American president, public education, gun control, gay marriage, the science of …

U.S. Government Shutdown Is A Tripwire — But For What?

by Keith SchneiderOctober 6, 2013June 18, 20143

Barack and Michelle Obama celebrate the president’s second inauguration on Pennsylvania Avenue on January 21, 2013. Photo/Keith Schneider For a time earlier in my career I founded and directed the Michigan Land Use Institute, an advocacy organization that is quite adept at winning important public interest campaigns. The Institute’s policy achievements were due in no small way to how consistently we adhered to our rules of engagement. Respect those who disagree with you. Don’t call …

Owensboro’s Big Step Up To Relevance

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 21, 2013January 15, 20143

OWENSBORO, KY — Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky native and Senate Republican leader, took his place several years ago at the head of his party’s pack of ideologues who countenanced disinvestment, lower taxes, and less spending on public projects with public purposes. But here in Owensboro, a small city perched on a high bluff on a big bend of the Ohio River, the senator’s name graces a year-old riverwalk and plaza in Smothers Park, the …

9/11 Twelve Years Later – Cities Transformed

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 11, 2013September 11, 20131

The day of the 9/11 attack I was in Manistee, Michigan, a 45-year-old journalist and non-profit executive focused on the usefulness of a new and greener development strategy called “Smart Growth.” My brother watched the attack from his office window in lower Manhattan. My cousin was inside the South Tower and escaped unharmed before it was hit. At the end of the month I toured the still-smouldering piles of rubble at Ground Zero with my …

Water, Energy and the Ohio River Valleyâ€™s New Course

by Keith SchneiderAugust 26, 2013September 20, 20131

ATHENS, OHIO â€“ Few places in the United States better understand the economically essential and ecologically risky accord between energy and water than this southeast Ohio town. Athens, where Ohio University was founded in 1804 as a Northwest Territories frontier institution, was once surrounded by dozens of working underground coal mines. Thousands of miners spent much of the 19th and half of the 20th centuries digging long horizontal and vertical shafts that essentially hollowed out …

TIM: This Is Mongolia

by Keith SchneiderAugust 15, 2013August 26, 20134

Devan Horn, an endurance equestrian from Houston, was the first rider to finish the Mongol Derby, the longest horse race in the world. But she didn’t win because of a time violation related to her hard-charging strategy. Photo/Keith Schneider The braided hard-packed dirt roads of Mongolia are a feature of the country’s high steppes, the result of rain and mud forcing drivers to find alternative routes up and down long ridge slopes. Photo/Keith Schneider ULAN …

A Tank of Warm Water Brews A New Development Tea in Mongolia’s South Gobi Desert

by Keith SchneiderAugust 14, 2013August 16, 20131

Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia’s largest company, installed this tank to satisfy herder concerns. Herders say it’s a joke. Rio Tinto says it was a temporary means to an end – supplying water to livestock. Photo/Keith Schneider KHAN BOGH, Mongolia — “And this,” says Battsengel Lkhamdoorov, a South Gobi herder who once managed 600 animals, “is our new spring.” Laughing, he lifted the lid of a brown steel box, its hard lines unusual in a landscape of …