At the Frontlines of the Global Transition
The anguish of fall is upon us in northern Michigan. The astonishing colors, temporary as they are, are brushed onto this magnificent place I’ve called home for two decades. Yesterday, on one of the last road bike rides of the year, I took this gallery of shots with my iPhone. Every corner on our two-lanes, virtually empty of traffic these days, a billboard of reds and oranges and yellows unfolds, the colors deepening with the …
CENTRAL LAKE, MI – There is no sprawl in Central Lake, a northern village of 942 residents in magnificent Antrim County. At this time of year rows of feed corn await harvest and the green white pine and multi-colored hardwood forests pour down the hillsides to the deep blue waters of the lake that gives the village its name. (see pix above and below) Central Lakes possesses an asset all-too rare in American communities – …
It wasn’t that I existed all these years without encountering bluegrass music. As a freshman at Haverford College in the 1970s I lived across the first floor of Barkley Hall from two upperclassmen –Â Peter Doan and Evan Lippincott — whose vinyl collection included the 1972 Nitty Ditty Dirt Band’s Will The Circle Be Unbroken. But not until this summer, when I arrived in Owensboro, Kentucky, where the International Bluegrass Music Museum is located, did …
Add preservationists to the list of American interest groups determined to kill clean energy projects. Preservation Magazine published a good piece on the troubling trend in its summer 2011 issue. Along with all of the other concerns I’ve raised about the myriad and all-too-effective campaigns at the grassroots to curtail clean energy development, add this thought. At least in clean energy development the United States has the opportunity to replace scenic vistas with energy sources …
LINGANG PORT CITY: Shanghai, China — Dishui Lake, constructed where the Yangtze River meets the East China Sea, is a perfectly circular manmade lake that was meant to put people in close proximity to fresh water. The Nanhui Dongtan Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies on Dishui Lake’s eastern bank, is a 122.5-square-kilometer (47-square-mile) expanse of tall grasses and shallow, rain-fed ponds that also tests the lure of fresh water; in this case, to recruit great flocks …
MANILA — The sun rose here to another towering and impressive Asian skyline. On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, while the world joins the United States in honoring a terrifying moment, I see skylines here and in China that describe in clear line and form just how far that day blasted us off course. One measure is the scant alterations in the skylines of big American cities in the last decade. Another is that in …
I’ve been working in Owensboro, Ky. this summer on What’s Done, What’s Next: A Civic Pact, a three-part project to help the city understand the new velocity of change in the 21st century and suggest ways that will lead to prosperity and a high quality of life. Right off the bat, it’s important to note how different Owensboro’s attitude about the future is from much of the rest of the country. Owensboro is in transition, …
ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — Since 1937, when the Treasury Department established a bullion repository at nearby Fort Knox, gold has been the principal attraction of this city of 28,531 south of Louisville. Now, travel and tourism executives are counting on a $29 million youth sports complex under construction northwest of town to help fill Elizabethtown’s 1,525 hotel rooms and drive development of hundreds more. Along with China, I’ve spent a good bit of time this summer …
SHANGHAI — The second edition summer issue of Eco-nomy, the new compendium of news and ideas about sustainable business, includes a piece from Circle of Blue’s Choke Point: China project earlier this year on the confrontation between water and energy in China. The page-long article is in Chinese, which is appropriate given that Eco-nomy is a fresh voice in Asia for describing the profitable alliances that develop when companies apply ecological principles to their business …
On a hike in the Upper Peninsula this week observed this sign: Nature Trail to Parking Lot. It struck me as either the most apt description of Michigan I’ve seen or the shortest history of the United States ever written. — Keith Schneider
