Entries by Keith Schneider

China’s Early Pivot Away From Carbon

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World’s largest coal consumer’s big challenge to lower climate-changing emissions. Photo by Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue Though economic expansion is slowing in China, the country is still growing over $US 700 billion annually, almost twice the growth increase in the United States. Demand for energy to build and operate mammoth residential housing projects […]

Donghao Chung, Guangzhou’s Daylighted Water Refuge

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A new urban park constructed from a polluted sewer is a message of new principles at work in China. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue The 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) park along Donghao Chung, runs for a time beneath an elevated freeway. At other moments it pools in a plaza open to the light and […]

Lighting Small Fires As Cure to Catastrophic Blazes in California

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Prescribed burns tested in Klamath Mountains. Photo courtesy Adam Shumaker / This American Land A prescribed burn near Butler Creek in California’s western Klamath Mountains clears 5.6 hectares (14 acres) of underbrush to serve as a firebreak when the next big wildfire races through the area.Click image to enlarge. By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue […]

In Oakland, Still A City With Thorns, A New Garden Emerges (Part II)

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Quality of life and economy thrive with greater care for water, energy, air, and waste. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue With city and state carbon reduction limits in place, Oakland set out to meet them. The city audited its buildings, analyzed its fleet of vehicles, and reviewed its solid waste infrastructure with […]

Fish Screens Are Part of The Answer to Saving Sacramento River Salmon

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Out of social confrontation over water and fish in California comes a fish story worth telling. By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue MAXWELL, Ca. — Before the founders of the Family Water Alliance began installing metal screens at the end of the big pipes that draw water from the Sacramento River to irrigate Colusa County’s […]

In Oakland, Still A City With Thorns, A New Garden Emerges (Part I)

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Quality of life and economy thrives with greater care for water, energy, air, and waste. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue Over the last quarter century, and with quickening resolve during the last decade, Oakland underwent a city makeover. Ardently supported by residents and business executives, the city steadily injected much more ecologically […]

Pope Francis Visit, VW Fraud, China Cap and Trade, and John Boehner — How They Coincide

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Circle of Blue Senior Editor Keith Schneider puts an eventful week into a global perspective. Photo courtesy Lei Han via Flickr Creative Commons On Friday, China said it would introduce a cap and trade program to reduce climate change emissions. The same week, Volkswagen admitted to installing software on 11 million of its cars to […]

Slowly, With Earth Pushing Hard, A Confederacy Of Concern Develops

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Circle of Blue Senior Editor Keith Schneider discusses how new energy-efficient, water-conserving, land-protecting operating principles are slowly becoming priorities around the world.

U.S. Clean Water Enforcement Strategy: Big Penalties But Fewer Prosecutions

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Agencies are going after polluters with smaller staffs and less money.

Sites Reservoir in Northern California Is 20th-Century Idea Trying to Fit the 21st

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New surface water storage project would be largest in California since 1979.

One Way to Ease California Drought: Recycle Wastewater For Irrigation

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Del Puerto Water District to buy a third of its water supply from Modesto and Turlock treatment plants.

Oakland’s Water Treatment Plant Generates Its Own Energy and Then Some

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Plant is at the center of a big move to also solve city’s solid waste problem.