Asia biggest river, the Yang Tze, is dry. The 400 million people that depend on it have a difficult time ahead. Rainfall has halved probably as consequence of permanent climate change. Last week the state council – China's cabinet – acknowledged that Three Gorges faces "urgent problems" ordering energy generation to be stopped and the water supplied for consumption. Also the gigantic south-north water diversion project, which aims to tap the normally moist Yangtze basin to supply arid northern cities like Beijing, is being called into question.
When in China, I told my friends that the Chinese tried to solve their water supply problems by massive civil works, which they have been doing from the early imperial times. They are good at mobilizing massive manpower and building canals and long walls. But the solution was (1) recycling wastewater, (2) desalination and (3) campaign to save water in the cities and in the farms. Irrigation systems have to be improved. May be I should contact my friends in China for a consulting trip. (What is with me? My place is with Kever Benjamin City's "jubilados" who spend the morning conferencing in the Rothschild St. cafeteria).
7 comments:
Suppose desalination is the future which company has the tech and capacity to build the plants necessary, I only know of Hyflux in Singapore is there another contender ? will it be reverse osmo like Israel or the Saudi power-plant mate desalination plant.
Why "permanent climate change?"
As opposed to temporary drought, as happens, or part of a cycle.
J, do you think global warming (anthropogenic or not) is likely reality?
RM
Earth climate has been changing all the time, there is no doubt about that. There were ice ages and hot, tropical ages. The climate is continuing to change.
I dont know the reasons (the Sun is all the time erupting, the Earth orbit is changing, Volcanic dust, whatever) but change it changes. I dont know if it is a global warming, but local changes are obvious and I think they are "permanent" in the sense of more than a lifetime.
The Chinese are the paradigmatic example of the 'hydraulic civilisation' with all the tyranny and suffering that it entails. It didn't help that Jiang Zemin was a Russian-trained engineer who apparently never recovered from his infatuation with Stalinist gigantism.
Ivan
Well said, Ivan. They believe that problems are solved by disciplined mass labor. Mao ordered the killing al ALL the birds, because they were eating the grain. Billion Chinese went out and killed all the birds. They did it! It worked! But soon insects multiplied and consumed the plants.
J, it may sound like an excuse of the also ran, but I am glad that my country India, did not have to endure the horrors of 'modernisation' Chinese-style. Thank God for Ghandhi, thank God for the British.
Ivan
In my personal opinion, you should also thank God for Indian food and not Chinese food. I enjoy spicy, very tasty Indian food. Chinese food (and ingredients) are bizarre and repugnant.
Post a Comment