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Tag Archives: environmentalism
Water, Scarcity, and Tibetan Plateau Frontiers
Memo #142 Theme Editors: Tashi Tsering and Jack Hayes Freshwater (in)security is quickly rising as a critical global challenge. Today, March 22, is World Water Day. The focus is freshwater and measures for conservation and management. Last fall, Asia Pacific … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, China, India, Tibet
Tagged climate change, engineering, environmentalism, Hindu, international relations, NGO, political science, rivers, Tibetan Plateau, water
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The Disappearing Rivers of India
Memo #120 – The vital rivers of the state of Uttarakhand in northwestern India may soon disappear. A multitude of feeder streams and tributaries that run through the state carve tight passages through steep mountains before joining the sacred river Ganga (Ganges). Ancient and contemporary Hindu traditions are steeped in worship of these tributary rivers, and their sacred confluences are named “prayags”. But Uttarakhand is part of a frantic push across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and China to harness the rivers of the Himalayas for hydroelectric power.[1] This movement threatens to alter entire river systems in an unprecedented way. Continue reading
Posted in Asia, India
Tagged engineering, environmentalism, Hindu, rivers, Tibetan Plateau, water
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Polluted Water Challenges China’s Engineering Efforts
Memo #114 – Water is central to China’s environmental challenges. While not water-short overall, the geographic and temporal variations in China’s precipitation are extreme. Some areas suffer from dangerously lower per capita fresh water availability. Water conservation innovation does happen, but shortages usually elicit familiar engineering responses such as dams and diversions. Most notable is the South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), which aims to take nearly 45 cubic kilometres (45 billion cubic metres) of water annually from the water rich Yangtze River basin to water scarce regions around the Yellow River basin in the north. The diversion would essentially replace the Yellow River’s total annual runoff of 30 billion cubic metres. Continue reading
Posted in China
Tagged engineering, environmentalism, rivers, Tibetan Plateau, water, WR-SNWTP
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Water Conservation on the Tibetan Plateau
Memo #112 – China’s most pressing water issues may not be its maritime claims in the South China Sea but matters of freshwater security. For many analysts, China’s domestic and international water security begins and ends with waters of the Tibetan Plateau. And the picture they paint is, to say the least, bleak. Unfortunately this ignores many grassroots and local water conservation efforts in western China. Continue reading
Posted in Asia, China
Tagged climate change, environmentalism, NGO, political science, rivers, Tibetan Plateau
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China’s Plans to Divert Water on the Tibetan Plateau
Memo #110 – The prospect of China controlling the taps of Asia’s main rivers is a subject of intense debate. Downstream countries are understandably concerned. But Chinese experts say it is the Chinese who should be most worried about its government’s plans. Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Bangladesh, China, India
Tagged climate change, environmentalism, rivers, Three Gorges Dam, Tibetan Plateau, water, WR-SNWTP
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Interview with Dai Qing, the Environmental Activist, Investigative Journalist, and Writer
Memo #39 – The indomitable Dai Qing (戴晴) has chosen to demand answers to uncomfortable questions and bring to account a system that dreams big dreams but harms those it is meant to serve. Ms. Dai is perhaps best known for her active opposition to the Three Gorges Dam project, which led to her imprisonment for ten months in 1989. Her new work with her long-term partners Toronto-based environmental NGO Probe International is an oral history of Beijing residents’ responses to their city’s water crisis. Rapid development has drastically reduced the capital’s water supply and sparked a massive new project to divert (highly polluted) water from the south to the north. This project would displace several hundred thousand people en route and promises to be at least as problematic and disruptive as the Three Gorges Dam. Continue reading
Posted in China
Tagged activism, Chinese Communist Party, Dai Qing, environmentalism, public intellectuals, Three Gorges Dam
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