Less Blessed 神山恩渐少
As part of their China Green project, Asia Society has released a new documentary about the Yellow River. Watch it here:
The Yellow River, also known as “China’s Sorrow,” often doesn’t reach the sea. Once the source of devastating floods that plagued generations of Chinese, the river is now running dry. In response, the Chinese government is replumbing the country to bring water from the wet south to the arid north.
As the Chinese saying goes, “when you drink the water, think about its source.” The signs of water scarcity in the Yellow watershed can be traced all the way to its headwaters in Qinghai, the meltwater of glaciers on the slopes of the sacred spirit mountain Anyemaqen (Ah-nyi MAH-chin).
The warming climate has put enormous extra pressure on this corner of the Tibetan Plateau, threatening to make unsustainable the traditional Tibetan way of life. Continued warming holds grave implications for hundreds of millions of people across the lower altitudes of northern China whose livelihoods depend on the Yellow’s water.
China Green has also launched a new website called On Thinner Ice: Disappearing Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau.
POSTED COMMENTS: One Response
Another greenwash. While discussing the Yellow River somehow they managed to miss the effects of the massive cascade of dams along the Longyangxia gorge! It is not just global warming which is screwing up China’s water supply, it is how the government chooses to manage its rivers. Not to mention it is negligence on the Asia Society’s part, and shows an utter disregard for both the environment, Tibetan nomads, and the viewers of its videos. About the nomads, you can see the fences in the video that the government set up restricting the nomads movement. Given no option, they have to sell their livestock. Are the Asia Society’s researchers unaware of the academic literature on nomads in this region? Yes there is global warming but until Beijing acknowledges that its “Go West” campaign of development is, next to global warming, the major factor in the destruction of the environment on the Tibetan Plateau and does something to correct it, there is no hope that the effects of global warming will be managed properly. Does the Asia Society get money from Beijing?