ModeShift - Part 33

TIQ: This is Qatar

by Keith SchneiderMay 5, 2013January 4, 20144

DOHA, Qatar –Mohamed Ali Darwish, a principal investigator at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, and one of the Gulf region’s leading experts on desalination, is a mechanical engineer assigned to help this dry nation of nearly two million residents develop a more efficient and ecologically safer means for securing its freshwater supply. Since 1959, when a Scottish engineer developed what is called “multi-stage flash evaporation,” or MSFE, Gulf coast nations have ardently pursued …

Qatar’s Women in Black, and Other Cultural Lessons

by Keith SchneiderMay 2, 2013May 2, 20130

DOHA, Qatar — Early next week QatarÂ hosts its third career fair in a year to “empower Qatari women in the nation’s workforce.” This is an Islamic Arab nation that thinks of itself as a relative haven of fairness for women, some of whom hold significant posts in philanthropy, education, and human resources. The event’s organizers note in their promotional materials that Qatar ranks ahead of its Gulf coast neighbors in encouraging women to embrace work …

Doha’s Toybox Skyline

by Keith SchneiderApril 29, 2013May 2, 20131

DOHA, Qatar — A decade ago Sheraton’s pyramid shaped hotel was just about the only modern building along this city’s Arabian (Persian) Gulf shoreline. Today the hotel is dwarfed by 21st-century skyscrapers designed by architects who seem to have been inspired by the shapes contained in a boy’s toybox. Yet along with the playful shapes comes an accompanying narrative of the rising concern about how development affects the Gulf’s ecological and economic security. We are …

Qatar Challenges The Way of the Desert

by Keith SchneiderApril 28, 2013April 29, 20130

DOHA, Qatar — Seventy-five years ago all of Qatar, a nation of sand and Arabian (Persian) Gulf shoreline roughly the size of Connecticut, was home to 25,000 residents. Fishing was an economic mainstay. So was spending weeks at sea diving for pearls. Doha, the capital city, was a seaside village. Qatar today is a nation of nearly 2 million people and Doha, its capital and a city swelled by hydrocarbon wealth and Arab ambition, is …

Just As It’s Always Been, Earth Day Marks Big Problems, Big Choices

by Keith SchneiderApril 25, 2013June 18, 20140

CHATHAM, Mass. — The tides here lay down a walkway of shells — horseshoe crabs, scallops, palm-size crabs — where the water meets dry sand. On Earth Day 2013 a nearly full moon is perched, like a round plate on a pedestal, amid an expanse of cloudless blue sky. Gulls soar and dive in a stout breeze, and in the nearby mudflats men and women with long-handled metal rakes in hand and collars turned up …

Boston Lockdown City

by Keith SchneiderApril 20, 2013June 18, 20145

On Friday before noon the Harvard Square area was empty in lockdown Cambridge. Photo/Keith Schneider CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Hours after the teenage white hat bomber was taken into custody, the rain started. It was a warm rain, a renewing rain. This morning dogwoods were in white bloom. Puddles on the sidewalks were like mirrors, reflecting the grey sky and the long strides of runners along the Charles. It felt like the world had changed. This …

Gun Violence Mounts; So Does Cowardice

by Keith SchneiderApril 17, 2013June 18, 20140

In Florida, supporters sounded off on the need to strengthen gun safety and reduce violence, some of whom also were members of the NRA. This has been a lousy week of murder in America. It’s also been another intolerable and telling week of cultural contrast best described by what President Obama today called “shameful” politics. When a terrorist bomb killed three and injured nearly 180 people in Boston two days ago, we reacted with sorrow …

Boston Marathon Bombing

by Keith SchneiderApril 16, 2013June 18, 20143

The week leading up to April 19 is turning out to be a gruesome one for the United States. On April 19, 1995 Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and injuring 680. That attack, McVeigh said, was justified by the FBI assault two years earlier, April 19, 1993, on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Seventy-six people died. Waco and Oklahoma City crystalized menace in several …

So Much Fracking Wastewater in the Ohio River Valley, Companies Want To Transport It By Barge

by Keith SchneiderApril 12, 2013April 16, 20130

Last month, while nosing around the new Utica shale gas fields of eastern Ohio, I learned that the Obama administration was preparing to consider a proposal from the U.S. Coast Guard that would allow barge operators to transport wastewater from shale gas fracking operations on inland waterways. Earlier this month the Coast Guard delivered the proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Sometime later this year the agency is likely to make …

In Civic Dispute Over Fracking, Lessons of Pragmatism From Previous Fights

by Keith SchneiderApril 3, 2013May 23, 20140

The economic benefits of deep shale gas development are becoming apparent, especially in Ohio where two new steel plants have been built, and three more expanded to serve the drilling and production sector. U.S. Steel’s new plant in Lorrain prepares drilling pipe for deep well development. Photo/Keith Schneider Last month an 11-member collaborative – two foundations, five state and national environmental organizations, four energy companies — announced they had formed the Center for Sustainable Shale …