(February 21, 2011) South China Morning Post reports on the Chinese government’s first national water plan. Probe International executive director Patricia Adams tells the Post why the plan will fall short.
Patricia Adams
Patricia Adams is an economist and the Executive Director of Probe International, an independent think-tank and watchdog over the environmental consequences of Canadian government and corporate activities around the world. Her books include In the Name of Progress: The Underside of Foreign Aid, (Doubleday 1985), and Odious Debts: Loose Lending, Corruption and the Third World”s Environmental Legacy (Earthscan 1991), which exposes the jeopardy of years of loose lending for both the Third World’s environment and their economies, and proposes a legal remedy to place responsibility for the Third World’s debt crisis on the parties involved, instead of on First and Third World taxpayers. Pat also edited the English language translation of Yangtze! Yangtze!, the extraordinary critique by Chinese experts of the Three Gorges dam that inspired the democracy movement when it was first published in 1989, led to the postponement of the dam, and was subsequently banned by Chinese authorities. Her books have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia.
Patricia Adams responds to a Cap and Trade advocate
(February 16, 2011) In a February 14th National Post article, author Dan Gardner argued that ‘command and control’ environmental regulations should be replaced with a cap and trade system. But as Probe International Executive Director Patricia Adams points out, cap and trade is just another varient of the ‘command and control’ approach that Mr. Gardner claims to oppose. Below is her response in today’s National Post.
Patricia Adams: Haiti needs rights
(January 11, 2011) One option for Haiti is to make it a U.S. territory like Puerto Rico, writes Probe International’s Executive Director, Patricia Adams.
China’s 1.3 Billion Nobel Peace Prize Winners
(December 10, 2010) Though it was Mr. Liu who was honoured today in Oslo, he is a symbol of millions of his fellow citizens who everyday work to defend their rights and the rights of all Chinese citizens, writes Patricia Adams, Executive Director of Probe International.
Haiti: ‘The Republic of NGOs’
(November 24, 2010) As Haiti looks to the future, Probe International’s Executive Director Patrica Adams questions a reliance on foreign aid, writes Alanna Wallace from The Cord.
How to Best Help Haiti: Reduce Foreign Aid
(November 19, 2010) A speech given at the University of Waterloo by Probe International’s Executive Director, Patricia Adams, on the failure of foreign aid in Haiti.
Listen: Probe International’s Executive Director Patricia Adams in a panel on foreign aid
(Nov. 12, 2010) Probe International’s Executive Director, Patricia Adams, recently participated in a panel discussion on foreign aid, hosted by Radio Canada International.
China Officials Push Water Plan
(November 9, 2010) Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Probe International’s Executive Director Patricia Adams calls recent plans to pump raw sea water thousands of miles from the coast to the deserts of Xinjiang uneconomic and impractical—and one that only a government undisciplined by markets and public oversight would ever contemplate, let alone implement.
He who pays the piper calls the mining tune
(October 26, 2010) Industry wants carte blanche use of taxpayers’ funds, writes Patricia Adams in the Financial Post.
Probe International on BNN
(June 27, 2010) Probe International’s Executive Director Patricia Adams participates in a debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid. The debate originally aired on BNN.
Responding to Graeme Kelleher
(June 22, 2010) In his interview with chinadialogue’s editor, Isabel Hilton (In defence of dams, May 27), engineer and water-resource expert Graeme Kelleher says critics of China’s Three Gorges dam should accept the “facts” that the dam protects the environment by reducing coal burning and “saves thousands of Chinese people from being drowned in the floods of the Yangtze River every year.”
The EU agrees: No representation without taxation
(April 27, 2010) Replacing foreign aid with tax revenues will promote a democratic society where political and economic leaders can be held accountable by their citizens. Not only should there be no taxation without representation, there will be no representation without taxation.
Trial today, prison tomorrow: China’s rites of Christmas (Update 1)
(December 23, 2009) Today, China tried that country’s most prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, it will sentence him. He is expected to get 15 years for “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring “Charter 08” — a petition signed by some 10,000 fellow citizens calling for democratic reforms and the rule of law.
More evidence the Zipingpu dam may be to blame for the Wenchuan earthquake
(November 6, 2009) A recent article by scientists in the U.S. provides further evidence that the Zipingpu dam’s reservoir may have triggered the devastating May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China. The Wenchuan earthquake killed nearly 90,000 people and unleashed a chorus of speculation that the Zipingpu reservoir may have contributed to the severity of the earthquake, or helped to trigger it.
Three Dams Project
(July 14, 2009) China has undertaken the greatest project since the erection of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal — the Three Gorges Dam project. The Three Gorges Dam will be the largest hydropower station and dam in the world, with a 1.2 mile stretch of concrete and a 370 mile-long reservoir and 525 feet deep.
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