On the New York Times website, Jim Yardley reports both in print and on video about the crisis facing the Yellow River:
The source of the Yellow River, itself the water source for 140 million people in a country of about 1.3 billion, is in crisis, as scientists warn that the glaciers and underground water system feeding the river are gravely threatened. For the rest of China, where the economy has evolved beyond trading rings for sheep, it is the latest burden for a river saturated with pollution and sucked dry by factories, growing cities and farming ” with still more growth planned.
For centuries, the Yellow River symbolized the greatness and sorrows of China’s ancient civilization, as emperors equated controlling the river and taming its catastrophic floods with controlling China. Now, the river is a very different symbol ” of the dire state of China’s limited resources at a time when the country’s soaring economic growth needs more of everything. [Full text]
– A two-part video series that accompanies the article, is available here.
