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The Tibetan Plateau: A Freshwater Bank In Crisis
January 5th, 2009
The Asia Society has produced a documentary about the impact of global warming on the Tibetan plateau, the rivers which originate there, and the people who depend on them to live. From the introduction: As the source of most of the major river systems in Asia from China to Pakistan, including the Yellow, the Yangtze, […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Turning On The Tibetan Tap At The Expense of South Asia?
December 9th, 2008
Via The Circle of Blue and The Asia Times, two articles (one here and the other here) noting that – as China becomes increasingly stressed for water, it comes closer to slaking its thirst with Tibet’s Yalong Tsangpo River, known in India as the Brahmaputra. But international interests downstream worry about the impact on the […]
Read more »China’s Dam(n?) Plans
October 15th, 2008
As reported by The Guardian, China is planning to build a string of new dams in southern Tibet to boost its electricity supply. Given that hundreds of millions of people across Asia depend on rivers that originate in Tibet, and because previous hydroelectric proposals have proved controversial due to their impact on the environment, local […]
Read more »Battle at the Top of The World Threatens Indian & Pakistan Water Supply
September 24th, 2008
From Abu Dhabi’s The National, a disturbing report on the environmental havoc that India and Pakistan’s 24-year battle for the Siachen Glacier along the disputed border above Kashmir is wreaking, namely the acceleration of glacial melting which feeds the Nubra River, which drains into the Shyok River – a key tributary of the Indus River […]
Read more »Water: Oil of this Century (2)
June 3rd, 2008
Via The Christian Science Monitor, an interesting report on whether water – as Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February – “is the oil of this century.†As the article notes: “…Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building […]
Read more »China, Tibet, and the strategic power of water
May 23rd, 2008
As reported by Circle of Blue, a number of experts say that control and management of an even more vital resource – the Tibetan Plateau’s vast supply of freshwater – is also emerging at the center of the increasingly tense political and cultural strife between China and Tibet. As the article notes: “…the Tibetan Plateau […]
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