ModeShift - Part 45

Gas Hits $5 A Gallon in Washington, D.C.

by Keith SchneiderMay 10, 2011May 10, 20111

WASHINGTON – The price of gasoline crested to more than $5 a gallon this weekend in Washington, D.C. Along with stressing the majority of Americans completely dependent on their cars, the price rise also will prompt a new level of political agitation and policy nuttiness in the nation’s energy sector. You’ll recall that the last time gasoline prices rose to such heights in 2008 America elected a black president and the financial sector collapsed. Expect …

Ted Bruce’s Life Honored in Benzie County

by Keith SchneiderMay 6, 2011September 4, 20193

Late on Sunday, the day I planned to write this tribute to Ted Bruce, the nation learned that Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden in a daring midnight raid in Pakistan.Â It was a rare moment, the first time in my life that death presented itself in such fickle and unexpected garb. One moment I’m saddened by the illogical death of a 60-year-old friend who I’ve known for 21 years as the generous and hard-working …

Bin Laden’s Death, Afghanistan and Cody Bates

by Keith SchneiderMay 2, 2011May 2, 20110

Here in northern Michigan, we awoke jubilant this morning to the news of Bin Laden’s death, and not just because it closes a terrible narrative in our country’s history. It’s also personal in the most formidable way. The removal of Bin Laden from the global stage also means the dramatic weakening of U.S. justification for continuing the war in Afghanistan. And that, in turn, means that the chance that Cody Bates is deployed to that …

Charleston’s Newest Growth Dispute in the New York Times

by Keith SchneiderApril 20, 20114

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Under powder blue skies in mid-March, a small crowd of local leaders gathered on Union Pier to formally announce a $2.4 million contract to design a new maritime gateway to this beautiful coastal city. I lived in Charleston from February 1980 to September 1983, writing for The News and Courier, the local newspaper, and contributing as a freelance to Time Magazine, Southern Magazine, The New York Times, and other publications. Last month …

Our Choke Point Warning on Energy and Water — Well Received in China

by Keith SchneiderApril 19, 2011April 19, 20111

YINCHUAN, Chinaâ€”The morning we travel north from this provincial capital, following the Yellow River to the Nan Liang Migration Farm, Kou Guojiang greets our arrival with a smile and a farm-fresh breakfast. It is April 13, and the bright sun lights a long table set with big purple grapes, miniature oranges, thin slices of watermelon, cherry tomatoes, and crisp red apples so cold they perspire in the warming air. Kuo is the 46-year-old chairman of …

Chengdu China’s Successful Organic Farm

by Keith SchneiderApril 13, 2011April 20, 201111

CHENGDU, China — Just as with food safety trends in the United States, one antidote to the growing incidence of serious contamination events in China is to raise more food without farm chemicals using organic production practices.Â On Tuesday this week I visited the Anlong Organic Farm about 40 miles west of Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, and one of China’s growing number of organic farms. The farm is six years old, and owned and managed …

Bob Dylan, Disney, and Barbie Tangled Up In Shanghai Blue

by Keith SchneiderApril 11, 2011April 11, 20110

Bob Dylan performed here on Friday night in a memorable concert that featured a number of famous songs including Tangled Up In Blue, Desolation Row, and Like a Rolling Stone. His raw voice grew sweeter as his vocal cords warmed, and in the latter stages he actually sounded alot like the younger Dylan we all know so well. Though China has surpassed the United States in clean energy development, transportation, urban investment, residential housing, auto …

Shanghai is Blade Runner City

by Keith SchneiderApril 10, 2011April 10, 20111

SHANGHAI, China – Cascades of light, like shimmering waterfalls, tumble down the sides of spiral skyscrapers here in what a friend described as China’s blade runner city. Highways are elevated, lit underneath at night in blacklight blue. A maglev train, the first in the world, speeds at 250 miles per hour to the glass and steel expanse of the international airport, which gathers the train in the folds of its white wings. It’s easy as …

Bohai Sea Pipeline Could Open Chinaâ€™s Northern Coal Fields

by Keith SchneiderApril 5, 20110

XIâ€™AN, Chinaâ€”Last November, as government leaders considered energy goals for Chinaâ€™s upcoming 12th Five-Year Planâ€”which was adopted last monthâ€”60-year-old geographer Huo Youguang took the podium at an academic meeting about water scarcity and coal production in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, one of the driest inhabited areas on the planet. Over the next half-hour or so, Huo described a first-of-its-kind transcontinental pipeline that he believed could be a breakthrough in developing more fossil energy from Xinjiang …

Burst of New Dams in Southwest China Produces Power and Public Ire

by Keith SchneiderMarch 23, 20110

CHENGDU, China- Even in China, where power plants, coal mines, water-transport networks, and other big tools of industrialization are built at astonishing scale and with surprising speed, the hydropower dam construction program in Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, and other southwest provinces has no equal in China, or anywhere else for that matter. Israeli journalist Rachel Beitarie reports on China’s mammoth dam-building program for Circle of Blue, the sixth chapter in the Choke Point: China series that …