China on World Environment Day

Today, as it happens, is World Environment Day. For that reason, we've decided to (yet again) interrupt the long version of our travels through Xinjiang to bring you a few comments about China from an environmental perspective. China began filling up the next stage of the Three Gorges Dam yesterday; other than being the grandest of grand boondoggles, the Three Gorges Dam is supposed to provide a control for annual flooding of the Yangzi River (all four thousand twisty miles of it). To build this epic structure, the Chinese government planned the relocation of nearly two million residents and planned to submerge an immense expanse of the Chinese landscape. The ecological impact is difficult enough to comprehend; to put the raw number into context, imagine if one American out of every 150 had to relocate their homes to accommodate a new government project. The protests would bring a democratic government to its knees.

At any rate, some critics claim that China's history with dams is less than inspiring, though the real question is whether the Three Gorges Dam will significantly improve China's water management needs. In the "not-such-an-auspicious-sign" department (one always carefully checked by Chinese politicos, though apparently ignored this time), the Three Gorges Dam is the dream project of Li Peng. You may remember Li Peng from famous Chinese rally cries, such as the elegant "Li Peng is a Melonhead." Li Peng, former Premier of China, took the lead in the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square. To his credit, he tried to talk the students into peacefully quitting the protest, but the students were already well into their hunger-strike by that point and according to some reports weren't the most coherent in explaining their demands (one of which demanded that Li Peng step down). Li Peng, not to put too fine a point on things, was the Charlie Brown of the Revolution.

The ecological up-side to the Three Gorges Dam, according to the government, is that it will deliver enough clean energy to replace approximately 50 million tons of coal burned in the area every year. As you can see from the photo at the top of this blog (taken at 5pm today), air pollutants - such as coal - are still a serious concern for an industrious behemoth like China. Beijing announced that 20,000 drivers registered in Beijing promised to not drive their cars today in honor of World Environment Day. According to one of Michael's teachers, this was something of a euphemism, as he received a notice in the mail informing him that he was not permitted to drive his car today. Either way, it would seem that the gesture was a token one.

Perhaps Li Peng isn't the only Melonhead in China, though we shall await the verdict of the Chinese people on that determination.

Tune in tomorrow, as we return to our regularly scheduled Blogcast, where we will introduce you to the most stunning display of street-market logistics any of us have ever witnessed. Our friends over at Imagethief currently hold the copyright on both audio and video recorded on that particular evening in Urumqi, but we will do what we can to bring some of this media to your eyes here at the Shamrock Jews Adventure Story.