Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In addition to a global-north induced climate crisis, the scale of Pakistan’s floods has been exacerbated by hydrological infrastructures built over centuries by western imperialism and allied local elites.
While many people have concerns with large dams, very few realize their impending connection with the Green New Deal. In addition to threats that they pose to wildlife, human rights, and human health, the article explains two problems that most environmentalists are unaware of.
Much of the climate debate centers on targets to cut fossil-fuel use, and this is where the majority of resources, campaigning and media focus their attention. But one of the most cost-effective carbon capture technologies is forests, both leaving existing forests alone and rewilding damaged ones.
David Vardy is one of those rare individuals who believes that when a government makes a catastrophic mistake, all citizens are responsible. The 78-year-old former civil servant also argues “that in a democracy the true patriot is the one who dissents openly and is not silenced by fear and acceptance.”
Politicians who describe dams as “clean energy projects” are talking “nonsense” and rejecting decades of science, says David Schindler, a leading water ecologist. Former premier Christy Clark often touted the Site C dam as a “clean energy project” and Premier John Horgan has adopted the same term.
Two technical reports on the Site C dam prepared for the BC Utilities Commission by Deloitte LLP confirm critics’ warnings that the dam is not needed and is at high risk of delays and cost overruns. Deloitte also concluded that even if the energy is needed there are more environmentally friendly and less costly ways to generate power with a combination of existing hydro upgrades, conservation and smaller wind and geothermal projects.
The UN’s World Heritage Committee has once again demanded that the federal government conduct a proper assessment of the downstream impacts of British Columbia’s controversial Site C dam on Wood Buffalo National Park. In addition, the committee has asked the Trudeau government to immediately implement recommendations to protect the park, home of the Peace-Athabasca delta — the largest inland freshwater delta in North America — from industrial development..
Earlier this month, the foreign ministers of Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia reached agreement on basic principles for managing what will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam.
Conflicts over water have long haunted the Middle East. Yet in the current fighting in Iraq, the major dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are seen not just as strategic targets but as powerful weapons of war.
Let me get this straight: you want to flood a pristine valley in Canada to generate power so you can ship natural gas overseas to keep Asia’s lights on?
