Damn... China

Hey guys, anyone watch the Discovery Channel? I've been watching religiously in the past two months and man I learned a lot. Yeah yeah, nerd nerd, BUT... the programs on that station are really very interesting and entertaining. It started in december when they had this "doomsday" marathon and they were disecting natural disasters (old and very recent) like the southeast asia tsunami, mt. st. helens, pompei and even atlantis. Anyway, then they had this whole animal thing like killer leopards, el chupacabra, loch ness, and all that. Really neato kind stuff, plus there's this series called "mythbusters" where there's these two special effects/scientist guys who try and debunk (or "bunk") urban legends like levitation machines (myth), exploding tattoos (myth), and dirty toothbrushes (that one is true... if you keep your toothbrush in the bathroom you'll get nice little surprises... but they also had some control toothbrushes out of the bathroom and they had nasties too, so I guess it doesn't really matter, unless you leave them outside in the sun for the birds and cats to poop on like Jeremy's parents, and then you'll know for sure you've got nasties on it).

Anyway, today they had a special on China. In China they're building a dam, a MEGA-DAM! Haha, it's on the Yangtze river in the Three Gourges area and it's bumboocha. So, 70% of China's energy actually comes from coal, believe it or not, so it creates so much pollution and smog that skies are almost never clear and acid rain falls over 2/3rds of the whole China and smog deposits in the water seriously threaten fish and wildlife. Obviously they need some more environmentally friendly energy sources. This mega-dam would provide 1/10th the amount of energy needed to supply ALL of China, yikes. But, there are some drawbacks of course. By building this dam they would create a resevoir, a HUGE resevoir which would flood farm lands, villages, and entire cities. In fact, in order to make this public works project work, the Chinese government has to relocate more than 2 million people living on the edge of the very fertile Yangtze river. It's really sad, they showed all these little, and not so little villages with their people having to abandon their homes and lifestyles as their villages fill with water. Additionally, they have to completely demolish all the buildings in their towns (and not with machines, like brick by brick with hammer and crowbar destroy their own homes, which probably was kinda fun, but sad also) so that they don't create underwater obstacles to boats and whatever. The government then provides these relocatees (is that a word?) with "modern" housing in a newly built village. Ok, so most of these villagers will now get "luxuries" like running water and whatever, but imagine having to demolish and abandon your hometown and your way of life and move to a concrete block of an apartment complex in the middle of nowhere. Harsh.

Anyway, really eye-opening stuff, especially since all this has already happened. The project started in 1994 and the water was already blocked back from 2003. By the end of 2009 the entire dam should be completed, but until then, civil unrest and rumors of uprisings will probably pop up in the news every now and then. I recommend flipping to the discovery channel if you're bored and channel surfing, lots to learn, really.