ModeShift - Part 33

At Start of Second Term Obama Declares “We Are Made For This Moment”

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 23, 2013January 28, 20131

After delivering a second inaugural address fused with measured confidence, President Obama beams at the huge, cheering crowd that greeted him along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. Photo/Keith Schneider WASHINGTON — Four years ago, when crisis lay like a dark shadow across the land, and President Obama’s first inaugural address served as a kind of pep talk to refute what he called “the nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable,” this week’s inspiring and dignified …

On Water and Energy, India Is Different

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 15, 2013September 30, 20140

A 1,350-megawatt coal-fired power plant under construction in Tilda, near Raipur in Chhattisgarh, is one of more than 100 big generating stations recently built or nearing completion across India. Only China has a bigger coal-fired power plant construction program. Photo/Keith Schneider TRAVERSE CITY — It’s been a couple of weeks since our Circle of Blue team completed its 27-day research trip to India. Our work, a scoping mission to prepare for a comprehensive project in …

Hope For China’s Deep Shale Gas Development Impeded by Technical Reality

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 10, 2013January 10, 20130

Wei-201H3, the first deep shale, horizontally-drilled, hydrofracked natural gas well in China. Photo/Keith Schneider Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are climbing, in large measure because of China’s production and combustion of more than 3 billion metric tons of coal annually, or nearly four times as much coal as the United States produces and burns. One of the solutions — though it is attracting rigorous opposition in the U.S. — is replacing coal with cleaner-burning natural …

Circle of Blue — At the Frontline of the Global Contest Over Energy, Food, and Water

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 8, 2013January 8, 20132

Pressed by growing demand to cool a proliferation of new coal-fired power plants in Chhattisgarh, India, workers expand and modernize a big water transport canal. Photo/Keith Schneider TRAVERSE CITY, MI — As we’ve known for years now, the diminishment of the mainstream American media is opening fresh opportunities for more nimble and skilled newsrooms to produce first-rate reporting. Nowhere is that more true than at Circle of Blue, where I serve as senior editor, reporting …

The Wreckage Wrought By A Marauding Minority

by Keith SchneiderDecember 26, 2012December 6, 20146

Along the Champs Elysees on Christmas Day, nobody worried about getting gunned down in the street, or about a marauding minority political party bent on wrecking the nation. Photo/Keith Schneider PARIS — Along the Champs Elysees’ on Christmas night, an angels’ envy of rope-thin LED halos — colors shifting from red to blue to white — circled the trees and lit the broad boulevard where thousands of people strolled carefree. Nobody worried about the sick …

In Newtown Massacre, the Manifest Danger of Deceit and Delusion

by Keith SchneiderDecember 23, 2012June 18, 20140

In India, and around the world, people now question the credibility and character of American governance. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI, India — America seems, finally, to be getting it. The Newtown massacre changes things. Just how much and how fast is unpredictable. But we are different today than we were on December 13, the day before the killings. The age and number of children murdered. The blood-exploded serenity of a wealthy New England town. The …

In Newtown Massacre, the Manifest Danger of Deceit and Delusion

by Keith SchneiderDecember 22, 2012December 25, 20122

In India, and around the world, people now question the credibility and character of American governance. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI, India — America seems, finally, to be getting it. The Newtown massacre changes things. Just how much and how fast is unpredictable. But we are different today than we were on December 13, the day before the killings. The age and number of children murdered. The blood-exploded serenity of a wealthy New England town. The …

TII: This is India

by Keith SchneiderDecember 20, 2012December 29, 20126

In Korba, a coal mining town in Chhattisgarh, India the colors and energy of a vital and perplexing nation are ever vivid. Photo/Keith Schneider RAIPUR, Chhattisgarh, India — This striking nation, with cities full to the brim with people, and a lavish countryside wired together by kidney-jostling roads lined with mango trees, is a treasure of surprises and paradoxes all its own. In nearly a month of travel here, to India’s capital New Delhi, its …

Newtown Massacre Is Part of Global Trend: Protect The Rich, Crush The Children

by Keith SchneiderDecember 16, 2012June 18, 20143

In Sichuan Province, southwest China, boys leave classrooms at the end of the day in a country where school can be hazardous. Photo/Keith Schneider RAIPUR, Chhattisgarh, India — News of the Newtown massacre reached this city of jammed streets and honking bedlam as part of the shock wave that struck the United States, and then swept around the world. As the ritual of sorrow and weeping commenced in America and here, the next thought that …

Rice, Wheat, and Water Serve Up Equal Helpings of Punjab’s Wealth and Risk

by Keith SchneiderDecember 14, 2012December 14, 20120

Haryana, in northeast India, has one of the highest per capita incomes among India’s 28 states. Neighboring Punjab also ranks at the top. The most important reason: the huge wheat and rice harvests, the latter processed and stored in this mill in Naraingarh. Photo/Keith Schneider NARAINGARH, Haryana, India — The first rain in six months, and a stout and cold wind whipped at the black plastic covering stacks of grain Thursday morning at the Shivshakti …