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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Chinese accused of stealing rainclouds (Take a break news :) |
| 2004-07-17 |
| A STORM is brewing in China as drought-plagued regions accuse each other of stealing clouds for rain-seeding. With the help of modern technology, scientists can fire rockets filled with various substances into light, fluffy clouds to make them rain. "But the practice has caused considerable controversy in recent days, with some saying that one area's success with rain has meant taking moisture meant for one place and giving it to another," the China Daily said. The row was severe in central Henan province. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #3 The English saw the Irish overpopulation from some years before the famine hit. A commission proposed the inexpensive fares that were used to ship Irish refugees to the United States, fearing that they would overrun England otherwise. The blight also gave ample warning, hitting on the continent first, and causing some famine in the German nations. And it should be noted that the Irish farms were owned by landlords, with the typical Irish family working the land as tenent farmers. Subsisting on a hole full of potatoes, any other crop being exported, ended when the potatoes became black rot. In the case of the Dust Bowl, the Potato Famine, or what faces China today, there is no "benign neglect" because there was never any government interest in the first place. In China, seeing the problem coming, they decided to build the Three Gorges and several other dams, to ship water from water abundant South China to water poor North China. They are also engaged in a massive tree planting project to try to stave off the dust bowl effect and preserve topsoil. Whether it will work, only time will tell. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-07-17 2:42:40 PM |
| #2 In the Ireland potato famine, however, the staple crop (potato) failed because of blight. The landlords were growing other things and the farms were doing pretty well. The famine was either benin neglect or government policy, either way, outrageous. In the case of the Chicoms, heavy handed central govt decisions, coupled with drought, will be a disaster for the Chinese people. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-07-17 12:39:28 PM |
| #1 China is danger close to having something akin to the "Dust Bowl" that hit the US in the 1930s. Today, people are usually mystified by this event, with a "big deal, a dust storm?" response. But the removal of arable topsoil from a vast amount of farmland can devastate a region. In China's case, food production could be cut by a large percentage, maybe even causing famine that affects tens or even hundreds of millions of people--so large that the world food bank could not compensate with imports fast enough. And starving people are worse than a hundred swarms of locusts for destroying everything in their path. Ireland took over 100 years to recover from their potato famine. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-07-17 10:35:40 AM |