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CHILEAN CLIMATE :
'' ' Rivers So Rigged ' ''
DAMMING RIVERS AFFECTS BOTH people and ecosystems.
A 2009 study by the University of Chile found large dam projects unnecessary to meet Chile's future and growing energy needs.
More than 60 million people in developing countries depend on lakes and rivers for their livelihood. An estimated 80 million people have already been displaced by dam projects worldwide.
The United Nations estimates that around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, at least in part because of damming, river pollution, diversion for industrial agriculture and overfishing.
For more than a decade, Chilean environmentalists have been fighting dam projects.
In 2006, the Chilean energy the Chilean energy corporation Endesa proposed to build five major dams in the Aysen region, a sparsely populated area in the south of Chile that is home to one of the world's largest ice fields outside of Antarctica and Greenland.
This dam project, called HidroAysen, would have flooded nearly 15,000 acres of forests to transmit power to distant cities and to fuel the country's copper industry, which accounts for as much as 10 percent of Chile's GDP. But at what cost?
THE rivers of Chilean Patagonia cascade from snow-capped mountains through sheer rock facades and rolling hills, radiating bright turquoise, deep blues and vivid greens.
The Puelo. The Pascua. The Futaleufu. Each is as breathtaking and unique as the landscape it quenches.
But these rivers, like many world-wide, have been threatened by dam projects that aim to provide power for distant cities and mining operations.
Only one-third of the world's 177 longest rivers remain free flowing, and just 21 rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] retain a direct connection to the sea.
If we are to arrest global climate change, prevent the toxifying of fresh water sources and do right by all those who depend on rivers for survival, we must return more rivers to their natural state.
A 2009 study by the University of Chile found large dam projects unnecessary to meet Chile's future and growing energy needs.
More than 60 million people in developing countries depend on lakes and rivers for their livelihood. An estimated 80 million people have already been displaced by dam projects worldwide.
The United Nations estimates that around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, at least in part because of damming, river pollution, diversion for industrial agriculture and overfishing.
For more than a decade, Chilean environmentalists have been fighting dam projects.
In 2006, the Chilean energy the Chilean energy corporation Endesa proposed to build five major dams in the Aysen region, a sparsely populated area in the south of Chile that is home to one of the world's largest ice fields outside of Antarctica and Greenland.
This dam project, called HidroAysen, would have flooded nearly 15,000 acres of forests to transmit power to distant cities and to fuel the country's copper industry, which accounts for as much as 10 percent of Chile's GDP. But at what cost?
THE rivers of Chilean Patagonia cascade from snow-capped mountains through sheer rock facades and rolling hills, radiating bright turquoise, deep blues and vivid greens.
The Puelo. The Pascua. The Futaleufu. Each is as breathtaking and unique as the landscape it quenches.
But these rivers, like many world-wide, have been threatened by dam projects that aim to provide power for distant cities and mining operations.
Only one-third of the world's 177 longest rivers remain free flowing, and just 21 rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] retain a direct connection to the sea.
If we are to arrest global climate change, prevent the toxifying of fresh water sources and do right by all those who depend on rivers for survival, we must return more rivers to their natural state.
For decades, rivers have been an afterthought in global climate talks, like the ones that concluded in Madrid this month. New streams of climate finance, like the Climate Bonds Initiative, may soon be available to to large scale hydropower projects.
While renewable energy and its financing are an important part of climate solutions, hydropower dams are not the answer.
Hydropower is not a clean, green technology. Rivers help regulate an increasingly volatile global carbon cycle by transporting decaying organic material from land to to sea, where it settles on the ocean floor. This draws an estimated 200 million tons of carbon out of air each year.
As an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist, Philip Fearnside, has documented, large dams, especially on tropical rivers like the Amazon, are ''methane factories,'' emitting in some cases more greenhouse gasses than coal-fired power plants.
This month in Madrid, 276 civil society groups attending the United Nations climate talks called on the Climate Bonds Initiative to exclude hydropower from climate financing.
Hydroelectric dams, when they are built, flood large areas of vegetation. This fuels decomposition and releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Considered as a whole, hydroelectric dams emit a billion tons of greenhouse gasses per year.
This is comparable to the aviation industry, which emitted over 900 million tons of greenhouse gasses in 2018.
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Climate Change and Latin America, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors : Macarena Soler, Monti Aguirre and Juan Pablo Orrego.
With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssiciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
''' Realms & Rivers '''
While renewable energy and its financing are an important part of climate solutions, hydropower dams are not the answer.
Hydropower is not a clean, green technology. Rivers help regulate an increasingly volatile global carbon cycle by transporting decaying organic material from land to to sea, where it settles on the ocean floor. This draws an estimated 200 million tons of carbon out of air each year.
As an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist, Philip Fearnside, has documented, large dams, especially on tropical rivers like the Amazon, are ''methane factories,'' emitting in some cases more greenhouse gasses than coal-fired power plants.
This month in Madrid, 276 civil society groups attending the United Nations climate talks called on the Climate Bonds Initiative to exclude hydropower from climate financing.
Hydroelectric dams, when they are built, flood large areas of vegetation. This fuels decomposition and releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Considered as a whole, hydroelectric dams emit a billion tons of greenhouse gasses per year.
This is comparable to the aviation industry, which emitted over 900 million tons of greenhouse gasses in 2018.
The Honor and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Climate Change and Latin America, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors : Macarena Soler, Monti Aguirre and Juan Pablo Orrego.
With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssiciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
''' Realms & Rivers '''
Good Night and God Bless
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