Chinese Premier Li Qiang called it a “project of the century,” as he stood alongside high-ranking officials to announce the construction of the 1.2 trillion yuan (about $168 billion) infrastructure project along the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo river in July. The state-run Xinhua News Agency hailed the world’s biggest planned hydropower dam as a “low-carbon development … a safe project that prioritizes ecological protection.”
But the sheer scale of the dam carries immediate and long-lasting consequences for planetary health. Environmentalists say the Yarlung Tsangpo creates unique hydrothermal conditions when it collides with the eastern Himalayas, resulting in the world’s northernmost tropical rainforest, home to diverse large cats and ungulates, as well as some of Asia’s largest and ancient trees. Many new species are still being discovered in the area, including the white-cheeked macaque, found around 2014.
This is terrible for the environment. China shills will never admit it.
ForeignPolicy’s missing the point, then:
It’s a weapon, not an electricity-project.
Want to break India?
Break their water-cycle!
Up in the mountains they could use solar or wind, as the air’s much cleaner up there, & the winds along mountain-ridges is viciously stronger, ttbomk…
But the hugest hydro dam “that prioritizes ecological protection” while it intentionally-destroys as much ecology as possible…
no: that’s a weapon, primarily.
Monsoon-cycle’s the target.
The destruction, both ecological & to the water-cycle are, in my opinion, primary, & the electricity is secondary ( when you monkey the water-cycle THAT much, you run the risk of having the resultant water-cycle wreck your dam’s utility!
I’ve read that China’s monkeying things with its other huge-dams has created problems with some of 'em, more/worse flood/drought cycles, etc…
IF they actually intend the electricity to be its primary reason, & building it trashes the water-cycle enough to sabotage that, then heads ought roll, within the CCP … but I don’t know if accountability works that way, in their party.
Nor do I care, actually:
CCP’s variant of confucianism’s endless & mortal-intent replacement of nature program, keeps having the same underlying-nature, & the same consequences.
It’ll only be “satisfied” when there’s no living left: only dead, robotic ritual, & the “god” of establishment-authority, all former-life crushed beneath.
People have to experience wilderness, in order to value it?
Seems right: which means that nearly-nobody on this planet validly can value it, because it doesn’t exist anywhere near them, now…
How depressing that fact is. )
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