Any1 Can Help Me With This Story? Question: What Is Your Reflection?

Question

Prolonged drought along the Yangtze has reduced China's longest river to record lows, triggering a debate over the Three Gorges dam's ability to generate power, state-media said yesterday.
The Yangtze fell to its lowest level last yrs since records began in 1877, but a dam official told the Xinhua news agency that power generation in the Three Gorges area would not be affected.
"There have never been two successive yrs when a serious drop in the amount of water flowing into the mainstream of the Yangtze has occurred," said the official. "So, I believe it is unlikely there will be a significant drop in the in flow of water into the Three Gorges Reservoir from the upper reaches this year."
Buy observers say such arguments are based on historical data and fail to consider the more recent issue of climate change.
Over 2.6 million people upsteam from the dam have been facing water shortages since late February, according to the agency.

Answer 1

Whether the data is historical or not, the fact remains that recent climate changes have significantly affected the amount of rainfall in the dam area. While the dam's power generation capability may not be too affected, the dam doesn't seem to help address the social, environmental and economic costs in the immediate area.

My thoughts are rooted in this: "Another factor that must be considered when assessing the feasibility of constructing a large dam are the effects of global warming and climate change. Dams and their containment capacity are built on calculations of expected annual and seasonal rainfall and river flows. As the effects of global warming take hold there are likely to be changes in these patterns. Even small changes in climate can cause major changes in river flow, resulting in increased sedimentation, floods and even the extreme of dam bursts." (Leonard, Jane Kate (1996) Controlling from Afar: The Daoguang Emperor’s Management of the Grand Canal Crisis, 1824-1826., Center for Chinese Studies., The University of Michigan., Ann Arbor, MI - cited in http://www.american.edu/ted/3gorges.htm#5 )

The 3 Gorges Dam, I'm afraid, will prove itself to be a monumental, environmental disaster.

Answer 2

My reaction? Obviously, unless the things of nature, in general, change greatly soon things will become much worse before anything gets better.