To whom...,
These "answers" about dam projects are totally inadequate.
Natural-gas-fired power plants still produce greenhouse gases and natural
gas is not available in all areas or as cheap as coal. It is also a
non-renewable resource. Riverine environments are not "destroyed" by even
thoughtlessly constructed dams. They are altered and migrating species
suffer badly. That is a reason to change damming practices, not to
abandon the practice. The "respondent" claims at once that dams produce
disease (an idiotic simplification) *and* that they reduce wetlands where
the very insects to which he backhandedly refers breed. Clearly it can't
be had both ways. To what extent dams eliminate floodplain habitat
obviously depends on the land at the reservoir's edge which, of course,
becomes a new flood plain. Dams are often built in steep valleys where
narrow floodplains are drowned, but they need not be. In fact dams can
create vast floodplains and vast wetlands if they are built so that
flatter land is flooded. Try and sell that to local politicians:
flooding *more* land for the sake of a better natural environment. Clearly
the claim of drowning fertile land is stupid since the point of the
endeavor is to control erosion and provide irrigation.
It can be said that dams slow river flows and create stiller water
downstream. However, one of the major problems facing developing areas is
development along the historic floodplain. Even if a significant verge is
left, this activity increases flows during flood periods. Damming,
therefore can be an intelligent way to manage inevitably pressured
floodplain verges. As for fishing, the reservoir produced is often as or
more productive than the river that preceded it, especially if large areas
of flatter land are flooded. I don't think that trees are much more
important ecologically than plankton or weeds, so that is pretty much a
wash (although, again, it depends on the verge that is left - if flooding
cuts off forest areas from each other or there is no forest left along the
shore of the reservoir that can be deleterious, but that depends on good
planning). Lakes also provide tourist interest and recreation.
As for agriculture, I am no fan of traditional farming. I believe
it is wasteful, back-breaking labor better left to machines working large
spreads. Small farmers are a doomed anachronism. The economics of staple
farming on even thousand acre spreads are difficult. That improved
irrigation resources might encourage irresponsible farming practices by
making the land *more* arable has nothing at all to do with the dam and
everything to do with the regulation of agricultural practices. Finally,
conservation is nice and desirable, but it does not provide fuel for
development. It is a way to make an existing system more efficient and
delay or prevent the need for new infrastructure projects. The existing
systems in the third world are woefully inadequate and new infrastructure
projects should only be delayed for so long as it takes to make them
smarter, more effective, and a better engine to provide a better living
for the proletariat. That means competing with the forces of capitalism
for control of infrastructure, not abandoning infrastructure altogether.
peace
