Hi All: ___I am hoping Doug (DAS or Tochatihu) sees this for a response given his current position and location. ___I watch a lot of the BBC, German and English Aljazeera News from my local PBS stations and there is some coverage on the sand storms and pollution choking off the country. One of the news casts mentioned the desert is now just 100-miles from Shanghais or maybe it was Beijing? ___I watched another PBS special on China that went into great detail on the water problem and it was said of the 5 (maybe it was 7?) major waterways in China, none are fit to draw water from for human consumption and it is at epidemic proportions. That special went on to detail China’s diversion of water from the south to the north with some massive pumping and river diversion projects which will increase pollution in the current southerly river flows and pump pollution to the Northern regions in an attempt to irrigate what was once dry Plaines that are quickly being over taken by desert? ___Can these man-made diversions actually overcome some of the problems it sounds like China is facing in the 21st century or is this a fruitless effort dictated by the few in power that really have no clue as to what they are doing? ___Thanks in advance. ___Wayne
Considering they have official "Blue Sky Days" for the few days you can actually see the sun through the Beijing smog and marathoners showed up for the Olympics wearing filtering masks, I'd say they're done for. Also, I remember at least one WSJ article from 2006 about the PRC locking an environmental activist up for complaining about water quality in the local drinking stream- it changed colors depending on the output of the local factory. I'm not an environmental engineer, but I don't remember drinking water being purple.
Actually when I came to China I imagined that I might become more involved in water and watershed research. However a lot of data that in the US we would regard as public(like USGS streamflow data) are considered sensitive here. it is complicated for foreign nationals to get on the inside of that (and overly frank assessments here would not help ) Meanwhile the water quality annual reports at SEPA include a lot of data, and there are similar web sites for air quality data.. A lot of industrial discharge into surface waters is un- or under-regulated. A smaller proportion of the population than you might imagine is served by modern sewage treatment. All of that is undergoing change, but not at blinding speed. I think it would be fair to say that water supply is among the highest environmental priorites but there are inherent limitations. Some of those arise from the size and distribution of populations; the flow and distribution of rivers, and agricultural water demands that are not really negotiable. In some ways the last several months here could be a small preview of climate in decades to come. Heavy snow in the north is now melting into river floods and low-lying populations are evacuating. Meanwhile in the southwest, the current drought is described as 100-year return time. The South to North water diversion projects did not consider such potential climatic changes, and thus they may not deliver all ther anticipated benefits. Overall, not an easy nut to crack. We can check out desertification another time. If I missed responding to other topics of interest, there's probably a reason for it. DAS
It rained last night in Kunming, and probably more generally in Yunnan province. Not a drought-busting amount, but the lightning display (mostly cloud to cloud strikes) was fun. Standard ops is to shoot silver iodide into convective buildups. It is also fun to watch - the army guy gets on his cell phone to an air traffic controller to make sure there are no planes in his chunk of sky. The (about 1-meter) rocket goes to about 8 km AGL and disperses its load. AFAIK China, US and Russia are the 3 leading cloud-seeding countries. DAS
Very interesting, thanks for responding Tochatihu. I don't think I would like to live that way? Sounds a bit scary. cheers, Hal
Actually I have been reluctant to visit India because the poverty there is (said to be) pretty overwhelming. One upside I could mention about China is extremely low rates of violent crime. Nightime walks in cities are feasible here, as I surely would not do in any large American city. Obviously, severe laws on street drugs and guns are related to this. Just thought I'd drop in a happy thought, so you folks won't think I'm suffering unduly. DAS
Maybe it's just that I'm big and ugly, but I think fears of urban areas are a bit over-blown. I can't say I've never been a bit worried, but I've gone for nightime walks in about every city I've ever visited--including, for instance Oakland, Houston, New Orleans, and Atlanta--and never had any trouble.
I don't think I would move there,but I do like the way they look after crime! Only my opinion. Cheers hal
I'm not big and ugly... Well... I'm not big... I'm 5' 10 and 129# and haven't had any worries walking around at night. /shrug However, the bigger towns I have walked around allowed concealed carry if you had a license. The bad guys may have thought I was armed.
I agree that fears about walking around cities at night are overblown. You just have to avoid the wrong neighborhoods. I've even gotten lost as a tourist in larger cities--Chicago and NYC--and still felt safe. Granted, I'm 6'4", but I'm the least intimidating 6'4" man who ever lived.
