I know this will sound rather crude. But I do have a question that goes
beyond the environmental and big dams issues. Why is
the liberal left so bent on projecting a world that they cannot attain at
home want to see it materialize in societies that do not operate on
liberal principles? Feeding 880 m people is not a matter of joke.
Perhaps we should give credit to China. But will not these same
environmental folks be against China on human rights issues?
Anthony D'Costa
On Thu, 9 Jun 1994, David R Faust wrote:
>
> On Thu, 9 Jun 1994, Ben Crow wrote:
>
> > Andrew Sessions has posted the 'Manibeli Declaration', a proposal from the
> > International Rivers Network, of Berkeley CA, that there be a
> > moratorium on World Bank funding of large dams.
> >
> > Whilst I think the declaration makes several useful points about World Bank
> > practices, and I hope that it raises the level of debate about what the
> > World Bank does, I would want to note two reservations about the declaration.
> >
> > 1) as a critic on another list has already noted, there is a problem about
> > people in glass houses throwing stones. Those of us (particularly in
> > California) whose standard of living depends upon big dams are not in a strong
> > position to declare that others should not have them.
>
> Not everyone who opposes big dams lives in California even if
> International Rivers Network does have an office there. Furthermore, do
> people who live in glass houses have the right to suggest that others not
> move into such structures? Plenty of anti-nuclear people are connected to an
> international grid that supplies some proportion of its electricity from
> nuclear generation. Have they no right to speak up? Can Germans decry
> naziism?
>
> > 2) there are strong reasons to believe that world food production (and
> > particularly food production in India) during the last 25 years
> > would not have exceeded population
> > growth if the area of irrigated agriculture had expanded at a slower pace.
> > It is true that not all irrigation comes from big dams, but a significant
> > proportion of canal and groundwater irrigation depends upon water stored in
> > big dams.
>
> The Narmada dam has been thoroughly studied and critiqued. Even official
> figures show that benefits of the dam were overstated and that they will
> reach a comparatively narrow and well off portion of the population, and the
> costs in both financial and human terms have been understated. Lower cost
> decentralized alternatives exist that will be more effective than the
> Narmada dam in providing for irrigation and drinking water in Gujarat.
> The project has proceeded as far as it has largely as a result of
> information suppression, brute force and repression so that a narrow set
> of vested interests can profit.
>
>
> > This declaration is formulated in a way which potentially divides
> > environmentalists (and neopopulists more generally) from those who
> > argue that higher productivity (industrialization) is a pre-requisite
> > for higher living standards.
>
> It is inaccurate and tendentious to proclaim environmentalists a subset of
> neopopulists or to imply that anyone who opposes the dam is some kind of
> backward-looking environmental purist who would rather starve people to
> death than allow pristine nature to be disturbed.
>
> It is also without basis to assume that a large-scale
> project (i.e. a big dam) is always the best way to achieve higher
> productivity. In this case it merely will flood more land, destroy more
> forest, displace and impoverishe more poor people, thicken the wallets
> of more rich people, further centralize control of renewable resources, and
> cost more money than a small-scale alternative plan that has been
> proposed. while providing irrigation and drinking water to fewer people over
> a smaller area than the alternative.
>
> There is ample documentation on this, most of which should be available in
> the Bay area. If you would like references or more detail let me know.
>
> David Faust
> Geography Department
> University of Minnesota
>
> > Ben Crow
> > Food Research Institute
> > Stanford.
>
>
>
>
