Entries by Keith Schneider

Without Water, South Africa Anticipates A Mammoth Crop Failure

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Climate-related consequences are raising food prices, joblessness, crime, and instability. By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue PONGOLA, South Africa — On the last Friday of January, payday on the sugar cane farms of northern KwaZulu-Natal province, a hot sun beat down on the red clay of Cobus Horn’s equipment yard. Nduku Msimanga, taut and muscled […]

Durban Water and Sanitation For Poor Sets Global Standard

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South African city’s water experimentation and innovation serves 1 million residents. By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue DURBAN, South Africa — Arguably the most elegant aspect of an inelegant subject is how this city of 3.2 million residents, South Africa’s second largest, is solving monumental water and waste challenges in its jammed informal settlements. The […]

South Africa Crocodile Farm, Hurt By Drought, Is Where Gucci Bags Start

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Metcroc farm is full of slow moving product that doesn’t bite….hard. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue Juvenile crocs rest by a large pool in a kind of hyper-alert somnolence. Metcroc is one of the dozen or so croc farms that produce the bulk of the 45,000 skins that the United Nations estimates […]

South Africa Drought Draws A Frustrated Nation Together

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In rare instance of unity, people eye government’s blunders, not each other. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue Karsten Hinze fills a 500-liter tank from spring-fed water tanks at his brother’s farm for delivery to the homes of his mother and sister in Paulpietersburg, South Africa. He makes the trip every two weeks […]

Drought Pushes South Africa To Water, Energy, and Food Reckoning

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Cities run dry and harvests retreat in an already reeling nation. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue South Africa’s power sector supplies 91 percent of the nation’s energy from coal-fired power plants, most of them operating in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg.  By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue PONGOLA, South Africa — January […]

2015 Biggest Trends: Water Scarcity Rises to Top Global Concern

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After a year of deep droughts, worsening pollution, rising sea levels, and floods, water was finally recognized as perilous to nations and the international economy. By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue JOHANNESBURG — In the last days of 2015, the Famine Early Warning System Network, a forecasting tool, reported that the deepest drought experienced by […]

South African Power Plants Roiled By Water Scarcity and Global Pivot Away From Carbon

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Bankruptcies, project shutdowns, regulation, and emission limits curb enthusiasm for fossil fuels. By Keith Schneider, Circe of Blue Images from space of the Kusile and Medupi power stations, under construction in South Africa, show rows of partially completed turbine plants, a pick-up sticks jumble of big tower cranes, and an armada of trucks. The stunningly clear […]

Unearthing Water Risks of the Global Mining Industry

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Keith SchneiderCircle of Blue’s senior editor and chief correspondent based in Traverse City, Michigan. He has reported on the contest for energy, food, and water in the era of climate change from six continents. Contact Keith Schneider http:/Circleofblue.org/about/staff/Keith

Shenzhen’s New Path to Sustainability Is Crowded With Obstacles

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A new and huge city focuses on getting cleaner. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue An apt message for a new office park in Shenzhen. In 2014, provincial and national economists valued Guangdong Province’s annual economy at $US 1.1 trillion, which is more than Indonesia’s gross domestic product, and accounts for 10.4 percent […]

Analysis: India Seen As Vital Player at Paris Climate Conference

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Opportunity to shift from coal to cleaner energy is real and needed.

Paris Negotiators Expected to Reach First Global Climate Pact

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Momentum for a deal is strong. Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. ““Paris is the scoreboard more than the game,” he says. “The results will reflect how much movement pressure we’ve built since Copenhagen.” Click image to enlarge. By Keith Schneider Circle of Blue French authorities issued […]

Commentary: Drought Influenced Syrian Civil War; So What, Says U.S. Congress

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U.S. Congress on an island of reflexive denial. By Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue A paper published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States added fresh, peer-reviewed details about how a malicious four-year (2007 to 2010) drought in Syria played a role in touching off a […]