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Greening China – with green paint
CRI-English (China)
A barren hill among forested mountains beside a highway is green in Fumin County in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. And not the green of plants, but paint-green.
The strange green hill glistens in the light of the sun. Though the color of plants, on closer inspection, one finds little vegetation, but rather a coat of green paint.
The hill is called Lao Shou and is located in a forest reserve. It used to be a stone pit but was closed for disturbing villagers nearby with its noisy machines and dust from stone particles.
“A dozen painters spent more than 20 days painting the hill last summer. Large quantities of oil paint were used,” a villager was quoted by a Kunming-based newspaper Metropolitan Times as saying.
The villagers told a journalist that they hoped the local government would plant trees on the hill after closing the stone pit. They were quite confused when later they found some painters setting out to work on the hill with airbrushes.
The painters said they worked for the local forestry bureau. Apparently, the hill was painted green because of its location opposite a newly-built office block for the local government.
It might have been a quick fix for inspections by superior officers, the villagers said.
The local forestry bureau had no comments.
The awkward project has aroused criticism from local villagers. The villagers accused the project of being useless and costly. It cost several times more than planting trees on the hill, they said.
(13 February 2008)
Sounds incredible – almost like a hoax news story – but it seems to be true. MSNBC picked it up: Hillside gets a coat of green paint.
An environmental journalist points out that during the Industrial Revolution, repainting the landscape was often done to disguise the effects of polluiton. Lewis Caroll satirized this practice in “Alice in Wonderland” as the Queen of Hearts’ men are shown painting the roses red. See Disney depiction (YouTube).
Related: Gasping for air in China (includes a revealing aerial photo).
UPDATE: Commentary from the Guardian last year: China’s green pledges are as deep as a coat of paint.
Advice to Westerners from Matthew 7:3:
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?
-BA
Tajikistan: UN Urges Food Aid, As Anger Mounts Over Energy Crisis
Farangis Najibullah, RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty
As the United Nations appeals for urgent food aid to stave off a humanitarian crisis in Tajikistan, critics say anger is mounting among Tajiks, who for the first time since their civil war in the 1990s may be ready to protest for major change.
It’s been the harshest winter in living memory for Tajikistan, leaving hundreds of thousands of people bitterly cold and hungry.
In some areas, temperatures have dropped below -20 and even -30 C. Rivers have frozen over, dealing a severe blow to the country’s decrepit and out-of-date hydroelectric power system, on which Tajiks are dependent.
Energy supplies have also been cut from neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The result: severe shortages of gas and electricity, with a knock-on effect on food supplies.
(18 February 2008)
Nigeria: Let Us Go Back to Firewood
Chika Otuchikere, Leadership (Abuja) via All Africa
The country is experiencing an energy crisis; there is no gas anywhere, and if you find it, you pay through the nose for it. Really scary because we all know that in Nigeria what goes up does not come down. Interestingly President Yar’Adua seems bothered; he has approved all sorts of plans, from those on planning, regulation, distribution and pricing to what he calls the master plan.
My take is simple and short, whether we agree or not we should go back to our old kitchen, the ones that used to be outside the main house, made of mud brick and thatch roofs; there is no kitchen like that, those kitchens often took time to construct.
We went wood searching, picked up many but it never finished and every home was sure of more than enough for firing the biggest pot in the house and the food produced was most times, not just delicious in taste but spread its aroma around the neighbourhood. Many of our mothers were married to their husbands just because of the dexterity they showed with the ‘firewood-cooked food’.
I am making this recommendation because this whole energy problem is becoming a plague that has no solution. This is not the first time we are developing a plan; we like big names, this new one is called Nigeria Gas Infrastructure blueprint, and the idea is to stop the importation of cooking gas, make it available, we are even told that by the end of next month the current price would drop.
(17 February 2008)
Pakistan: Fear of load-shedding on polling day looms large
Asim Javed, The Post (Pakistan)
PEPCO says there will be no power failures on polling day
Load-shedding to be used as a tool to rig elections: political parties
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LAHORE: Despite tall claims by the WAPDA authorities [WAPDA = Water and Power Development Authority] that there will be no power breakdowns on February 17th and 18th, citizens had to face the agony of power failures on Sunday.
Although it was a holiday and all industries and institutions were switched off, but WAPDA authorities failed to ensure smooth supply of electricity in violation of the directions issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan and MD PEPCO about stopping load-shedding one day before elections.
The fear of load-shedding looms large on the polling day. Political parties believe that the government will use load-shedding as a tool to rig elections during the critical phase of counting.
Neither WAPDA authorities nor the government has devised a strategy to avoid power failures on the polling day. People from different walks of life expressed their anger over the issue and criticised the management of WAPDA for its failure to ensure smooth supply of electricity.
The country is undergoing a severe crisis of energy and WAPDA announced four hours’ load-shedding all over the country. On the other hand, all political workers and candidate faced immense problems due to frequent power cuts during the holding of corner meetings. All contesting parties and their candidate were dissatisfied with their election campaign due to power outages.
(18 February 2008)
