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DAM-L Dam misinformation and the paradigm shift (fwd)

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Subject: Dam misinformation and the paradigm shift
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 08:51:27 +0700
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            April 29, 2001  




                

         



      GUEST COLUMN / DAMS


      Dam misinformation and the paradigm shift
      Large hydropower dams and large irrigation projects with dams, weirs, and water diversions are part of the syndrome of over-population and over-development that is threatening the global ecosystem and causing social disintegration


      Tyson R. Roberts


      This commentary is a response to Martin Wieland's article titled 'Don't damn dams out of hand' in the Bangkok Post on 29 March 2001. Wieland's article, it may be noted, was in response to a banner with anti-dam slogans in different languages hanging from a bridge on Thailand's Menam Chao Phraya that appeared in the Post's issue of 15 March.

      Wieland presented his pro-dam arguments forcibly and in a well-organised fashion. Many of his statements are slanted or biased, or half-truths. Others are subjective over-simplifications of complicated issues. The main problem, however, is that his entire essay represents an archaic point of view. The thinking in it is based upon a failed paradigm of development. This expansionist, no-limits-to-growth paradigm has resulted in global environmental deterioration and diminished quality of life for everyone. It is the root cause of social, political and economic instability and insecurity.

      Fortunately the world might be in the early stages of a major paradigm shift in global economic development. The new paradigm has not yet been officially adopted by organisations such as the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, and certainly not by Wieland's International Commission on Dams. The ICD is not to be confused with the WCD or World Commission on Dams. WCD is supposed to provide a balanced evaluation of dams and particularly of hydropower dams. ICD is a purely pro-dam lobbying group. Its membership is composed mainly of engineers, consultants and others professionally and financially interested in promoting dams.

      Wieland and others holding views similar to his should try to adjust their thinking and behavior to the new paradigm if they can. The problem with paradigm shifts is that most people in the middle of one are unable to recognise it, and others who comprehend the shift are so habituated to old ways of thinking and old ways of behaving that they are unable to adjust or adapt to the new paradigm. Instead they try to detract from the new paradigm and its supporters. They cling tenaciously to the old ways and rail against the new thinking. Thus it is up to succeeding generations to take up the new paradigm. This is starting to happen in many parts of the world. It is in mankind's best interests that the new paradigm prevails. It involves environmentally-and people-friendly regional and global development based on intentional population reduction. It involves conservation and preservation of wilderness and of biodiversity, and increased quality of life for all human beings. It is an elitist concept in which Homo sapiens, the elite species, establishes a rational relationship to the biosphere. In economic terms it means development that is truly sustainable, based on resources that are truly renewable. It means living within the means provided to friendly-users by our user-friendly planet.

      Contrary to the statements of Wieland and others stuck with the old paradigm, the new paradigm is not idealistic or utopian thinking. It is pragmatic, rational and realistic. It is also beautiful and challenging. The old paradigm is ugly, boring, destructive and ultimately obscene. It is not idealistic, not rational, and not pragmatic. It is based on the self-defeating and nihilistic assumption that mankind cannot escape from the loop of over-population and over-development.

      A close reading of Wieland's commentary reveals the faultiness of his thinking. In the first paragraph he states: "World Anti-Dams Day on March 14 may be just the invention of small groups of dam opponents trying to draw public attention and block future dam projects." More likely the March 14 occasion represents an expression of numerous people of diverse backgrounds motivated by their (perhaps limited at this point) perception of the new paradigm. It is characteristic of paradigm shifts that proponents of the old paradigm cannot grasp the rate at which the new paradigm is taking over.

      In the second paragraph is the statement that: "There is a growing need for sustainable and environmentally friendly sources of energy, which [hydropower] dams can provide." Increase of quality of life for everyone may mean that many people will consume more energy in the future than they do today. But that does not mean that any of the increase should come from hydropower dams. Most hydropower dams are not sustainable sources of energy and they emphatically are not environmentally friendly. There are very few exceptions to this statement, and the exceptions do not occur in tropical Asia, India or China.

      In the second paragraph Wieland's article also states that dams have contributed significantly to flood control all over the world. This is certainly true. But it is only a half-truth. Dams also have contributed significantly to floods and aggravation of flooding all over the world. Dam failures have been responsible for substantial loss of life. The floods in India's West Bengal and in Bangladesh in September-October last year were certainly aggravated by dams. The floods in Cambodia and Vietnam during the same time also probably were aggravated by dams including Vietnam's new Yali hydropower dam and China's 1993 Manwan Hydropower dam on the Mekong mainstream in Yunnan. Dams might be utilised more successfully for flood control if they were not used for hydropower. Unfortunately the people who build dams are interested in making money. They know how to make money converting hydropower into electricity (thus leaving behind a dead or dying river) but they do not know how to make money out of flood control. Wieland asks: "Why are so many people from the dry northeast of Thailand migrating voluntarily Bangkok? Are there too many dams with a negative impact? We know that dams contribute only very marginally to the migration of poor rural people." This is a simplistic and therefore untrue assessment of a complex issue. First of all it is inaccurate to describe northeast Thailand as dry. There is a dry season, of course, and some parts are drier than others. People are leaving Isan and trying to find a better life in Bangkok because they are the victims of multiple environmental impacts. Dams, especially irrigation dams but also hydropower dams, have contributed substantially to widespread environmental deterioration in Thailand's northeast. The main concerns of the dam opponents are related to environmental and socio-economic impact mitigation. These also are serious concerns for dam developers and owners. Dam proponents are keen on promoting mitigation measures because they help to get governmental and public a
 Most so-called environmental mitigation measures such as the Pak Mun fish ladder fail to mitigate. Most resettlement efforts (socio-economic mitigation) don't resettle. Environmental mitigation measures often have their own negative environmental impacts. Resettlement schemes often are forced or fraudulent and almost always seriously flawed. Mitigation and resettlement are part of the old way of thinking. They belong to the old unhealthy and unworkable paradigm of economic development that must be abandoned. Nobody in the dam community is interested in intentionally destroying the environment or in disregarding the interests of people living in a reservoir area. Members of the dam community (including Wieland) simply do not have an adequate understanding or feeling for the environmental and social problems involved. For them these are only impediments in the way of development and progress. Wieland gives himself away by implying that only people in the reservoir area are impacted by dams. Dam proponents habitually resist assessments that try to take into account environmental and social impacts downstream from the reservoir of a hydropower dam.

      India and China, the two most populous countries and with the highest undeveloped hydropower potential, although planning to develop their water resources, have vigorously opposed any anti-development policies supported by anti-dam interest groups. This is a highly subjective and carefully-hedged statement. As the two most populous countries, India and China urgently need to adapt the new paradigm for environmentally-friendly economic development. All of the over-populated countries in the world, including the United States of America, need to implement programs for gradual population reduction over the next 20, 50, 100 and 200 years. The environmental, economic, political and social benefits will be incalculable. Of course, population reduction is only one ingredient of the new paradigm. Increasing the quality of life is another ingredient, one that is particularly needed in India and China. It will not be achieved by building more dams. The stand of the Indian government on new dams is complicated. The federal government does not support Gujarat's massive Sardar Sarovar Project. It imposed a moratorium on a large hydropower dam on the Teesta River. India is in a state of denial regarding the horrendous environmental and social problems in West Bengal and in Bangladesh caused by its Farraka barrage. This project shows how impossible it is to predict the environmental and social impacts of a large dam.

      China is the most backward country in the entire world when it comes to promoting large hydropower dams. The government strongly supports massive projects such as Three Gorges on the Yangtze and a cascade of eight super high dams on Yunnan's Lancang or Mekong mainstream. Yunnan, like Laos a few years ago and Thailand before that, is today a dam promoters paradise. Most people in Thailand do not have even an inkling of what is going on in Yunnan regarding hydropower development and the immense political, social, and environmental implications.

      "It is in the interest of countries to only develop projects where the number of people who benefit outnumber those who suffer a negative impact. The people affected by large infrastructural projects are not to be considered automatically as losers. Everybody's life is affected by unforeseen decisions and circumstances. Usually this leads to new opportunities and most people do not want to return to the past once they get used to their new environment."These remarks border on the ridiculous. They could equally well be used as a good rationale for another world war. Its not an acceptable trade-off that thousands of Cambodians or Laotians lose their lands and way of life so that a million people in Bangkok can purchase electricity for a few years for 0.1 baht/kilowatt-hour less than they would otherwise pay. Wieland presumes to know the innermost thoughts of people he has never met and whose language he cannot speak. This is typical of the paternalistic and culturally-biased thinking of pro-dam engineers, bankers, and investors. Successful hydropower dams initially benefit large numbers of people. But in most tropical countries the reservoirs of many hydropower dams fill with sediment after three or four decades and then electricity can no longer be generated. At this point they are not much use for flood control or irrigation either. Pre-project cost-benefit analyses by dam proponents invariably show that the economic benefits from the use of electricity generated by the projects and the supposed multipurpose benefits will be much greater than the project installation costs and the environmental and social costs. Post-project cost-benefit analyses, if they are done, provide a reality check. Reality is that social and environmental costs are permanent or extend far into the future, while the benefits from the electricity that was produced are as evanescent as the electricity itself.

      Tyson R. Roberts, PhD Stanford University 1968, is a Research Associate of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He has studied the fishes of the Mekong basin since 1970 and has done environmental impact assessments of various hydropower projects in the Mekong basin including Thailand's Pak Mun Dam. 
     



Prasittiporn  Kan-Onsri [NOI]
Friends of the People [FOP.]
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Assembly of the Poor. http://www.thai.to/aop and http://www.yod.net/members/noi
Protection Mun River Network. http://www.thai.to/munriver and http://www.yod.net/members/bun
Protection Yom River Network. http://www.thai.to/yomriver and http://www.yod.net/members/kst

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