(February 12, 2010) Tired of paying into a fund for the construction of Three Gorges dam without knowing how the money was being spent, Ren Xinghui took matters into his own hands.
Researcher sues ministry over special utility fee
(January 29, 2010) A Beijing man is taking the Ministry of Finance to court after the agency refused to explain to him how they spend the extra fee tacked on to the electricity bills of nearly every household in the country.
Silencing scrutiny: Chinese government jails another activist
(February 9, 2010) Chinese activist Tan Zuoren has been sentenced to five years in jail for subversion. The environmentalist was arrested last March after he began investigating the deaths of thousands of children who were crushed when their schools collapsed on them in the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan.
The relationship between large reservoirs and seismicity
(February 8, 2010) Following the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, Chen Houqun, Xu Zeping and Li Ming discuss the question of whether large reservoirs can trigger strong earthquakes.
An ordinary citizen probes Three Gorges Dam finances
(February 6, 2010) On January 26, Ren Xinghui, a young Beijing resident, decided to stand up against China’s Ministry of Finance. Why? Because his request that income and expenditures for the Three Gorges dam project be made public in accord with China’s National Ordinance on Government Information Release was rejected by the Ministry.
Dams trigger stronger storms, study suggests
(February 4, 2010) Researchers are sounding the alarm that dams—along with their reservoirs—might also trigger more frequent fierce storms that could be the dams’ undoing.
Three Gorges Dam Hydroelectric Power Plant, China
(Febraury 1, 2010) Overview of the Three Gorges Dam Project.
Greenwashing Hydropower
(February 1, 2010) Big dams have a serious record of social and environmental destruction, and there are many alternatives. So why are they still being built?
Behind the Red Curtain: Environmental Concerns and the End of Communism
(February 1, 2010) With the environment in such a problematic state, and structural and ideological problems precluding effective responses within a Communist system, it would have been remarkable if environmental problems did not play a major role in bringing down the system.
Sturgeon farms cleared from Three Gorges Dam area for navigation safety
(January 28, 2010) Sturgeon farmers in the Three Gorges area of China’s Yangtze River are dismantling their fish tanks in order to keep navigation channels safe and clear.
Rule of law meets the Three Gorges dam
(January 27, 2010) Ren XingHui, a Beijing resident, has made headlines in the Chinese Internet press by using the country’s new disclosure law to request information about government funding of the Three Gorges dam.
Beijing resident sues the Ministry of Finance, requiring the disclosure of the Three Gorges dam cost
(January 26, 2010) Last year, Ren XingHui, a citizen of Beijing, submitted an application to the Ministry of Finance for the public disclosure of the Three Gorges dam cost but was rejected. Yesterday, Ren XingHui filed a law suit against the Ministry of Finance in Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court.
Three Gorges pushes another 300,000 off their land, surprises nobody
(January 21, 2010) The Chinese government is preparing to push another 300,000 residents living near the Three Gorges dam off their land to make way for what officials are calling an “eco-screen, or buffer belt.”
Optimizing ecosystem services in China
(November 7, 2008) With the Three Gorges Dam’s flood level, former cities, homes, and farm fields of about 1.5 million people will be seasonally under water, and a set of new unique ecosystems will develop. The extent of the impact of this unprecedented amount of wetland underwater,the potential ecological systems that will result on the borders of this reservoir, and possible approaches to minimize the impacts or enhance ecological services are mostly unknown.
The international expansion of Chinese dam builders
(January 13, 2010) Historically, Western countries have provided the technology for the bulk of China’s hydropower dams. The first turbines to be installed on a river in China was under the Qing Dynasty in 1909, by German company Siemens. But when the Chinese government decided to build the giant Three Gorges and Ertan dams in the early 1990s, it decided to do things differently.
Patricia Adams
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