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Schizo Enviro
(Image from European Space Agency via ScienceDaily)
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been thoroughly confused by Mother Nature and the havoc she hath wrought in China. First the floods. Then the desertification. Then some more floods. Then back to deserts. To me, these simultaneous catastrophes operate in a way that seems very counter-intuitive. What’s with the bi-polarism?
Just look at the headlines:
Water
- “Once-in-a-Century” Rains Displace Millions in China
- China grapples with epic flooding
- Floods displace millions of China’s poorest
Sand
- China Faced with Creeping Desertification
- China Faces Challenge of Desertification
- China sounds warning on threat of spreading deserts
China caught between flooding and expanding deserts
Asia News
July 12, 2007
Flooding might be south-central China’s main environmental problem, but expanding deserts (a fifth of China’s territory) are the main environmental challenge in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and parts of Inner Mongolia and Gansu.
Oh, that’s right! I forgot; China is BIG–9.3 million square kilometers big–and what affects the northwestern Tibetan plateau does not always carry over to eastern Anhui province. For many years, people believed that deforestation contributed to massive flooding (see this 1998 report from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.) But the United Nations reported no such link, referring to this study conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
The report said the sharp increase in economic and human losses attributed to floods is caused not by deforestation but mainly by the simple fact that more people are living and working in flood plains. As a result, many floods that previously would have been only minor events now become major disasters.
Desertification, the degradation of land and soil caused by climate change and human activity, contributes to dustbowl symptoms. In China–where deserts cover about 27 percent of the land, according to some reports–sandstorms blow far beyond the country’s borders, infiltrating nearby Korea and Japan and even stretching across the Pacific to North America.
In recent years, the Chinese government has implemented measures to combat the problem, most notably, “The Green Wall of China,” a 2,800-mile network of forests, designed to stretch from outer Beijing through Inner Mongolia. The artificially created ecosystem is meant to stabilize the area’s dunes, but skeptics fear that “the Green Great Wall is an expensive band-aid on a centuries-old wound. Or worse, propaganda,” writes Evan Ratliff of Wired magazine.
According to a recent article by Audra Ang of the Associated Press, China’s re-forestation efforts have proved fruitful.
Desert coverage has been falling by about 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) each year for the past five to six years, Zhu Lieke, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, said at a news conference. . . .
Since 1981, China has planted 49.2 billion trees — the equivalent of 219,000 square kilometers (84,500 square miles), said Jia Zhibang, head of the forestry administration.
Along with stemming the tide of sands, the forests will be used for alternative energy sources in the form of bio-diesel and ethanol, officials say.
Now as for flooding, there hasn’t been much good news, especially in recent weeks, as news outlets tell disaster stories of “epic” proportions.
And the UK isn’t doing so well, either.
The planet’s hurting.
For more on climate change in China:
Climate change linked to a millennium of war in China
NewScientist.com
July 23, 2007
The wars and rebellions that punctuated China’s ancient dynasties have inspired epic books and films. Now it seems the course of the nation’s history may have been influenced by a rather more mundane force: the weather.
Global warming in Asia: Six degrees and China
Ethical Corporation
By Paul French
July 5, 2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that we could be faced globally with six degrees Celsius of global warming over the next 100 years. Lynas’s book looks at what this will mean (degree by degree) for the planet and our lives. We’ve pulled out here the expected results for China just to cheer you up this morning…
Warming saps China’s goal of taming deserts
Associated Press via MSNBC
June 19, 2007
Half a century after Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” brought irrigation to the arid grasslands in this remote corner of northwest China, the government is giving up on its attempt to make a breadbasket out of what has increasingly become a stretch of scrub and sand dunes.
[tags]desertification, China, floods, climate change[/tags]
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4 comments for “Schizo Enviro”
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Erica
[...] China’s latest post pretty much sums up what I feel about the weather this summer: Schizo Enviro. Yep. While the rest of the country, even Gansu and Xinjiang, seems to be flooded out, Beijing is [...]
Most of China will be uninhabitable wasteland in less than 50 years. So much for the world’s next superpower. The 3 Gorges Dam’s resevior will be nothing but a flammable, untouchable mud pool.
It seems like China is just another part of the ecosystem pie gone awry. The culture is very similar to the Fertile Crescent where much of the population’s income depends solely on farming near rivers which in turn causes numerous fatalities and a good amount of property destruction. It’s too bad China doesn’t have some sort of aid program i.e. FEMA (Ok, bad example) to help the population. I recall a very morbid joke that my dad had heard while traveling down the Yangtze River which went something along the lines of “How do you know if a corpse floating down the river is male or female?” The answer being “A male floats faced down while a female floats face up.” Yes, it’s not a funny joke, more of a edgy poke (sexist at that) at how often fatalities occurred along the water. As for the desertification, that’s just everyones fault. All the advanced nations talk and talk about clean and ecofriendly fuels but every time someone buys a car I hear “It looks too sissy, you got any SUVs?” Until I see the Secret Service driving around in hybrid Ford Expeditions, I won’t take all the babble as anything but lip service. Anyhow, that’s my two cents.
“As for the desertification, that’s just everyones fault. ”
China’s desertification is solely its own fault. Emporers have been clear cutting the Yellow River basin for thousands of years and water has been drained for wasteful flood irrigation and numerous failed industrial projects.
SUVs are bad and their drivers generally have screwed up mentalities, but they’ve been around for only 20 years.
China’s self-delusions and attitudes are much more to blame for the overall deteriorating situation. If Chairman Hu, who is supposed to be a hydrologist, had half a brain, he would have been overseeing a massive flood water collection system instead of dam building.
Bad, stupid China.