Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns
Behind the drought and sandstorms lies our thirst for GDP
By Wan Lixin |
March 25, 2010, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A DISTRESSED farmer on his knees supplicates the heavens for mercy - rain for drought-stricken Chongqing - in a Page One photo in yesterday's Shanghai Daily.
The prolonged dry spell in China's southwest has left 18 million people and 10 million livestock parched for water.
I do not know under what circumstances the man was captured in this dramatic posture, but the picture does convey the gravity of the situation.
Traditionally, unusual natural calamities or rare celestial phenomena were often interpreted as divine disapproval of worldly affairs or human excesses.
The emperors would often take the blame by issuing a penitential decree, and vow reforms.
When I was young and complained about inclement weather my mother would tell me to hush up.
Today such calamities usually afford opportunities for the weather prophets to demonstrate their amazing hindsight.
When the weathermen wagged their tongues about El Nino, atmospheric pressure, and ill-directed currents, we began to perceive ourselves more like victims than culprits.
Last Saturday Shanghai was shrouded in a dust storm that later traveled to Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In the past, dust storms were a spectacle enjoyed by people in the capital.
When one of my colleagues was asked why he chose to move from Beijing to Shanghai, he used to reply, "Sandstorms."
Now he needs other reasons to live here.
We are even armed with advance knowledge that another eight to 10 sandstorms are expected to hit North China in April and May.
The technical analysis casts the calamities with an aura of inevitability, while suggesting to us that everything is firmly under control.
The weather prophets' magic statistics might even convince us that such occurrences do not point to any significant statistical aberrations for the long term.
The sandstorm and the prolonged drought should be cause for reflection.
Some believe that the sandstorms originated in the Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions, areas that have been seeing rapid growth due to the ambitious westward development drive.
This makes the areas preferred recipients of highly polluting enterprises gradually being moved away from the more costly eastern coastal regions.
The roads to prosperity are many.
In Ningxia, locals would travel en mass to the Inner Mongolia prairies to uproot fa cai (black moss) and licorice root, resulting in extensive soil erosion.
Factories, urbanization, and overgrazing give a strong boost to local GDP, at a cost.
In Yunnan Province, water had become a problem before the drought. The plateau province is known for its abundant water resources - but it has squandered that bounty by poisoning its many lakes and rivers.
It is reported that Yunnan's biggest hydro-electric project, Chaishitan Reservoir in Yiliang, has become an enormous repository of pollutants.
Now six of the nine major lakes in Yunnan have been seriously contaminated, and 22 percent of its 75 rivers have been severely polluted.
Across the province, there are only 38 sewage treatment plants, while 90 counties and cities discharge sewage without any treatment.
Forests are still being cleared for the more profitable rubber trees and eucalyptus, two fast-growing plants that suck up the ground water and erode the topsoil.
And there is the rush to dam the rivers for power generation. In terms of capacity, the region's dams already generate the equivalent of dozens of the mammoth Three Gorges project.
If the drought does not instill a proper dose of humility and awe in GDP-proud policy makers, they will continue to extract GDP by destroying the very elements that are essential to their existence.
The prolonged dry spell in China's southwest has left 18 million people and 10 million livestock parched for water.
I do not know under what circumstances the man was captured in this dramatic posture, but the picture does convey the gravity of the situation.
Traditionally, unusual natural calamities or rare celestial phenomena were often interpreted as divine disapproval of worldly affairs or human excesses.
The emperors would often take the blame by issuing a penitential decree, and vow reforms.
When I was young and complained about inclement weather my mother would tell me to hush up.
Today such calamities usually afford opportunities for the weather prophets to demonstrate their amazing hindsight.
When the weathermen wagged their tongues about El Nino, atmospheric pressure, and ill-directed currents, we began to perceive ourselves more like victims than culprits.
Last Saturday Shanghai was shrouded in a dust storm that later traveled to Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In the past, dust storms were a spectacle enjoyed by people in the capital.
When one of my colleagues was asked why he chose to move from Beijing to Shanghai, he used to reply, "Sandstorms."
Now he needs other reasons to live here.
We are even armed with advance knowledge that another eight to 10 sandstorms are expected to hit North China in April and May.
The technical analysis casts the calamities with an aura of inevitability, while suggesting to us that everything is firmly under control.
The weather prophets' magic statistics might even convince us that such occurrences do not point to any significant statistical aberrations for the long term.
The sandstorm and the prolonged drought should be cause for reflection.
Some believe that the sandstorms originated in the Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions, areas that have been seeing rapid growth due to the ambitious westward development drive.
This makes the areas preferred recipients of highly polluting enterprises gradually being moved away from the more costly eastern coastal regions.
The roads to prosperity are many.
In Ningxia, locals would travel en mass to the Inner Mongolia prairies to uproot fa cai (black moss) and licorice root, resulting in extensive soil erosion.
Factories, urbanization, and overgrazing give a strong boost to local GDP, at a cost.
In Yunnan Province, water had become a problem before the drought. The plateau province is known for its abundant water resources - but it has squandered that bounty by poisoning its many lakes and rivers.
It is reported that Yunnan's biggest hydro-electric project, Chaishitan Reservoir in Yiliang, has become an enormous repository of pollutants.
Now six of the nine major lakes in Yunnan have been seriously contaminated, and 22 percent of its 75 rivers have been severely polluted.
Across the province, there are only 38 sewage treatment plants, while 90 counties and cities discharge sewage without any treatment.
Forests are still being cleared for the more profitable rubber trees and eucalyptus, two fast-growing plants that suck up the ground water and erode the topsoil.
And there is the rush to dam the rivers for power generation. In terms of capacity, the region's dams already generate the equivalent of dozens of the mammoth Three Gorges project.
If the drought does not instill a proper dose of humility and awe in GDP-proud policy makers, they will continue to extract GDP by destroying the very elements that are essential to their existence.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
