So many great rivers are being lost thanks to greed and negligence. Once great rivers that brought life and prosperity to people have now brought destruction while at the same time being reduced to trickles. China has done this on the Yangtze with their Three Gorges dam project. Uganda has blocked the great White Nile destroying Bujugali Falls a major tourist attraction. In the United States this has been done so much to the Colorado that I no longer makes it to the ocean and ends up in some drainage ditch in East Los Angeles. Worry not, as there are still places that can be saved.
Patagonia is a land of extremes. Large peaks dominate the skyline while rivers of immense size fill the valleys below. A land barely touched by the human presence, still wild with places unexplored. It is a land of great beauty that only few see. Things are not all beautiful in Patagonia.
As of this very moment the government of Chile is planning massive installations of dams on rivers such as the Baker and Futaleufu. Rivers on the level of those likes the Colorado or Yangtze. Why? Just so Santiago can be a bit brighter as it continues its crawl across the country.
The damming of these rivers is on such a large scale it is hard to fathom the environmental impact it will create. They will create massive reservoirs flooding hundreds of tributaries and small valleys, displacing many people and disrupting the natural order of nature. Chile however thinks that since these places are so far out of the way for most people that they can just carry ahead and do as they please.
How do you change a governments mind when it is so reluctant to change it itself? You organize the people. Likeminded people that work together. There is group that has started to gain a worldwide following on the opposition of the damming of these great river and many others in Chile. They go by the name of Patagonia Sin Represas or Patagonia without dams. They believe in the preservation of these wondrous places and the spreading of knowledge and truth. They have also started to become effective.
The Colorado does in fact make it all the way to the ocean and it does not, and has never, flown anywhere near L.A.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coloradorivermapnew1.jpg
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ReplyDeleteThis is a big topic but I think you have a good start.
ReplyDeletethings to work on
- when telling about the damage that a dam will have on the areas around it use facts not guesstimates
-your facts are to why the want a dam are not all the way there
Find a specific dam to concentrate on and attack it. Then use what's wrong with that dam as your argument, it'll specify your argument I think. Maybe also put people who are specifically affected, maybe river outfitting companies on the Futaleufu.
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