All of California may not one day fall into the ocean, but right now, parts of it do. Erosion occurs all along the coast. Every ocean wave pounds on the bluffs and scours the beaches. Here is the Pacifica Municipal Pier. It’s shaped like an “L” — you can see that it makes a right [...]
Roving China correspondent Josh Chin has filed a brief video report with the Wall Street Journal on Beijing’s growing transit system. It’s done well, and for being just a few minutes long, feels awfully comprehensive. My favorite is this Chinese kid who grew up in Switzerland and in documenting the entire subway system online.
The Asia Society’s Center on U.S.–China Relations recently published China Green, a multimedia site that will highlight stories of China’s environment. Its initial set of videos and images focus on how climate change is affecting the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, which host the headwaters of most of Asia’s major rivers. The Asia Society took [...]
I saw Fargo for the first time this weekend. True. It reminded me about winter, and snow, and ice, all of which I lived with for many years, in Alaska, New Hampshire, Maine, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Sometimes North Texas. But here near the coast of California, winter means rain. And there’s even been less [...]
Conversations I’ve had about my work on the Huangbaiyu story almost always include a moment of surprise. In a conversation with a Los Angeles Times technology reporter last winter, for example, I explained the story of the failed attempt to create an eco-village in rural China, and the reporter interrupted me: “Have you ever heard [...]
On November 18th, I’ll be one of the featured speakers at GreenBuild’s International Forum. GreenBuild is the US Green Building Council’s annual convention and expo. If you’ve heard of USGBC, it’s probably in relation to its work in administering LEED building standards for sustainable design. This year, Greenbuild is supposed to draw about 25,000 attendees [...]
Although the flooding is near completion–the last city to be inundated is going under this fall–the consequences of China’s Three Gorges Dam will shudder through generations. But that’s a big story, and big stories are hard to tell well. One way is to find a character, a family, a community, and to show how the [...]
This summer I interviewed Kristie Boering, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at UC Berkeley. We talked about the potential environmental side effects of moving to a hydrogen economy. Our discussion, boiled down to about 800 words, is in the current issue of California magazine. Boering is incredibly articulate, and I learned a lot in the [...]
Here’s my backyard on Thursday morning. The roses are blooming. There’s a nice, warm light here. But what is it about this air that’s so familiar? Take a look at the government’s air forecast map for this weekend: California doesn’t look too good. All those little fire icons are making the air here “moderate,” at [...]
Gray skies are a common feature of many photos coming from Sichuan. Word is that it’s been raining. The destruction that follows an earthquake’s shaking is often the result of fire. San Francisco in 1906 is the classic example: in much of the city, whatever the shaking didn’t break later went up in flames. The [...]
Hard times around the globe these days. Earthquake in China. Cyclone in Burma. Tornados in the U.S. An enormous volcano on the verge of collapse in Chile. Over the past several months, I’ve been working on a story about a possible earthquake here in the Bay Area. One thing I’ve learned is starkly visible in [...]
Last August I went to northeast China and for the following five months I’ve been putting together a story about an eco-village in China. Or, rather, an attempted eco-village. Here’s how Frontline/World described it: “The village of Huangbaiyu in rural northeast China was supposed to be a model for energy-conscious design. The initial project was [...]
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