>A project to dam the gorges is in progress now, it will (...) raise the water level a bit,
135 meters over the sea level. Quite a bit, yes.
Building huge
reservoirs to generate
electricity or to increase irrigation coverage or flooding control is a distincitve feature of states with strong
governments. We little
Frenchies had the Tignes "
Barrage", which involved the drowning of a village and the relocation of its inhabitants. The
Turks are still pretty much in it too, covering their southeastern lands (see
Kurdistan - having no interest in experiencing DMan's
flaming talents I won't even try to draw an analogy between
Kurds and
Tibetans), which led to the destruction of archeological treasures such as incredibly well conserved Roman cities (see
Pompei). Let's mention the
Aswan dam as well, which would have destroyed the magnificient
Abu Simbel temple if some
Europeans oranisations/government had not decided to dismantle it and rebuild it on a safe area.
The 3 gorges
dam is the most
ambitious project of this kind to date, and although its positive impact is unquestionable, by any standard it will probably be the most
damaging. I won't even bother mentioning the
archeological disaster (this zone has been a center of Chinese civilisation for several millenia). I'll simply state the most likely outcome for the inhabitants: something between 1 and 2 million people will be expelled and relocated, sometimes in disastrous conditions (uncultivable lands, unemployment-plagued cities) by corrupt
bureaucrats who will then falsify
reports and
figures to please their superiors (which is quite an understandable
behaviour given the, say,
intense pressure they are under).
DMan, we like you, but your tendency to fall into the
Politically incorrect trap ("Politically correct media say this and that,
ergo I must always say the exact opposite in order to look clever and independant") sometimes gets a little bit unnerving.