Climate change sucks water from China's two longest rivers

[TexasLawyer]

Source: Xinhua

Climate change sucks water from China's two longest rivers
2007-07-15 15:36:41

BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Climate change linked to the contraction of wetlands at the source of China's two longest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow River, has reduced the volume of water flowing in the rivers, said Chinese scientists.

Scientists from the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) studied changes over the past 40 years to the wetlands on the cold Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in west China where the two rivers have their source.

Analyzing aerial photos and satellite remote sensing figures, they found that the wetlands on the plateau have shrunk more than 10 percent over the past four decades. The wetlands at the origin of the Yangtze River suffered the most, contracting by 29 percent.

In addition, about 17.5 percent of the small lakes at the source of the Yangtze River have dried up, said the scientists. "The wetland plays a key role in containing water and adjusting the water volume of the rivers," said Wang Xugen, a researcher with the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment.

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Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/15/content_6377992.htm

[candice]

1. A country ignores the environmental impact of its action with peril.

Polluted water, soils, and air in China are a danger to the Chinese and to all of us who live on this fragile planet.

China is growing so fast that it can't feed itself. Rain forests in Brazil are being replaced with soybeans fields that are exported to China. It's a way to import water that China needs, according to a Chinese spokesman who was quoted in the New York Times. For some reason, frozen soybeans that are a Product of China end up in my local specialty grocery chain store. Did they travel from Brazil to China where they were packaged and then sent back. Where were they frozen? Why are my tax dollars subsidizing soybeans in the Midwest?

Two new coal power plants in China come online each week.

Mercury ends up in rivers and the ocean as a result of the mercury emissions from these power plants, affecting the entire ocean's food chain. What is even worse is that these coal plant's CO2 emissions are escalating global warming. We are experimenting here. How warm does the Ocean have to get until the plankton can't survive?

25 % of the pollution over L.A., our most polluted city, can be identified as pollutants and Gobi Desert dust from China.

We are sacrificing our planet for trinkets that we mostly don't need.

In order to dampen the Chinese economy, excess money from its export business is invested in American T-bills. We are buying stuff from half the world away, and not stuff that really seems as good as we used to produce here in my opinion, and having it shipped to us across the Pacific. The money from American companies who manufacture goods in China is pumped into the Chinese economy where instead of raising wages for Chinese workers, the government converts it into U.S. debt (T-bills). Why not manufacture something in the U.S. and have the money from our purchases go into our economy? Goods may cost more, but the quality could be monitored and environmental laws better enforced. Fifty thousand fingers are lost in Chinese factories every month because of unsafe working conditions.

[Massachusetts]

2. Water wars coming to a country near you

This is a disaster that is already in the making, it'll be to late by the time all countries are on the same page realizing the potential catastrophe(s).

[bikebloke]

3. China Road by Rob Gifford

I'm reading China Road by Rob Gifford. It's a road trip across China. He mentions one river that no longer even reaches the sea.

[corbett]

4. Future Prospects All Bad

This tragic story is just the latest. We now face the prospect of millions of environmental refugees by the close of this decade. Results will be similar in the United States.

The truth has begun to take hold but much work remains to be done.

For my part, I have lived carbon-neutral since 2004 and now am the global warming expert on the new Keyboard Culture blog platform. Read more at

http://www.keyboard-culture-global-warming.com

[ohio2007]

5. It's all about population + industrialization + urbanization that equal the drain

on natural resources.