ModeShift - Part 37

Qingdao, A Beautiful Pacific Coast City, Beckons To Be China’s Cleanest

by Keith SchneiderJune 10, 2012October 22, 20121

QINGDAO, China — The Pacific Ocean tugs at the rocky shoreline on this city’s eastern boundary. Rugged claw-peaked mountains are sentinels to the north and west. Qingdao lays out on a plain of flat ground and rolling hills between the natural barriers, a just-built urban center of high rise office and apartment towers, 10-lane boulevards, and a goal of achieving stature as a model Chinese “eco-city.” I am spending a couple of days in this …

Outside Shenyang Lessons in Rice, Water, and Farming

by Keith SchneiderJune 8, 2012June 20, 20120

SHENYANG, China — The rice paddies start immediately beyond the borders of Liaoning’s provincial capital, a growing city of 8.1 million residents. Like a whirling turbine, the city flings 10-lane boulevards and 30-story apartment towers ever farther into the countryside. I’m out tracking down new irrigation systems, part of my research on Chinese grain production for Circle of Blue. Finding the rice and evidence of China’s new investment in modern irrigation infrastructure is a 50-minute …

In New York Times, Cincinnati’s Riverfront Revival

by Keith SchneiderJune 5, 2012July 28, 20121

CINCINNATI â€“ The shoreline of this Ohio River city, which thrived in the 19th century with 30 steamboat visits a day and then died in the 20th as pollution and industrial disinvestment pushed people and businesses inland, is emerging again as a new hub of civic and economic vitality. The New York Times published my article on Cincinnati’s riverfront development, more evidence of the Ohio River Valley’s new upward economic vector. The Times piece is …

Annals of Excess in China: The $317,000 Wedding Cake

by Keith SchneiderJune 5, 2012June 20, 20120

SHENYANG, China — Does excess consumerism represent the measure of a great nation? Or does it portend something darker, a treacherous crack opening in society? Either way, the wedding cakes for sale at the Black Swan bakery here in Liaoning’s provincial capital are a clear reflection of 1) the astounding wealth some attain in China’s bursting economy, and 2) the indecorous way that the rich communicate their separate stature. The biggest cake, aswirl in swans …

The U.S. Energy Boom and Ohio in The New York Times

by Keith SchneiderJune 5, 2012July 21, 20142

My interest in the Ohio River Valley, as readers of ModeShift well know, is keen. Today, the New York Times published my latest piece about the billions being invested in mineral leasing for oil and gas drilling. Tomorrow, in the NYT Business section, is another piece I did on Cincinnati’s improved economy and surging riverfront development. You may recall this article on Owensboro Kentucky’s improved prospects for the NYT late last year. I did this …

Production, Water Savings, and a Heroic History on China’s State-Owned Farms

by Keith SchneiderJune 4, 2012October 10, 20120

HONGXINGLONG, China — When she was a very young woman Liang Jun was one of the tens of thousands of durable adults dispatched by China’s new Communist Central Government in the early 1950s with orders to break open the prairie of this cold and formidable northeast province. Until agronomists and engineers from the Soviet Union offered their assistance, and their steel-tracked grey tractors, the work of cutting open land that was bound together by the …

In China Every Square Meter Counts

by Keith SchneiderJune 1, 2012June 20, 20120

XINXIANG — The fields of Henan Province, one of the important centers of global wheat production, spread beyond this city’s high-rises, a prairie of dusky grain in every direction to the horizon. Every meter, every mu, a Chinese measurement of land expanse — 15 mu fit into an acre — is taken with ripening wheat. The harvest has begun. Workers cut stalks with long blades and haul the wheat out of the fields on their …

Beijing Blues Festival

by Keith SchneiderMay 30, 2012June 20, 20120

BEIJING — On Saturday evening here in China’s capital and second largest city, the music of Wilson Pickett and B.B. King, Muddy Waters and Sam and Dave, poured from the arts district in a new area of town. In a city this big it’s easy to expect excellent musicians. But the Chinese lead singers, sweating out the lyrics in English — “Ride Sally Ride!” — was a surprise. Beijing will do that to Americans. Surprise …

Behind New Generation Mineral Leases: More Money, Less Hazards

by Keith SchneiderMay 11, 2012December 6, 20143

CALDWELL, Ohio — The day before they received a $280,000 check for leasing their oil and gas development rights to Eclipse Energy, Arthur and Sharon Stottsberry stopped in Marietta to remind their attorney that they had almost an acre more to lease. I caught up with the Stottsberrys as they were leaving Jennifer Garrison’s office, as ebullient and keyed up as a retired senior couple from this part of southeastern Ohio is likely to get …

Cleaner Water, Cooler Ohio River Cities

by Keith SchneiderMay 9, 2012July 28, 20120

One of the interesting small towns I’ve visited in the United States in recent month is Marietta, Ohio, home of Marietta College, and basecamp for Jennifer Garrison, a lawyer helping working people negotiate lucrative mineral leases with big oil and natural gas production companies. I’m working on articles for The New York Times and Circle of Blue about potentially momentous oil and gas production joining improving trends in water quality that are pushing the Ohio …