Note: There is no need to read the VOA summary. Instead read the article (in the next posting), which is more fun--and free, now that the website kindly allows one free view for non-subscribers.作者: choi 时间: 8-2-2014 07:54
Sulmaan Khan, Suicide By Drought; How China is destroying its own water supply. Foreign Affairs, July 18, 2014. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... /suicide-by-drought
Quote:
"Most of China’s most important rivers originate in the plateaus of Tibet and the surrounding mountain ranges, an area known by scholars as the Third Pole because of its plentiful ice.
"Of that water [in China] , only 23 percent is located in northern China, which, as home to most of the country's major industries, uses much more water than China’s south. * * * the south home to 77 percent of the country’s total water resources. Of the total water resources available in northern China, about 45 percent get used; the south needs to use only about 20 percent of its water resources.
"Beijing has yet to confront the many historical examples that suggest that water shortages can be a grave threat to national security. Persistent drought led to the collapse of Mayan civilization between 760 and 930 AD. In China, the Ming dynasty collapsed in the seventeenth century largely due to years of successive droughts. More recently, in the Middle East and South Asia, water shortages have led to political unrest.
In lieu of "the south-to-north water diversion project * * * [China should] insist[] on water and energy efficiency in the north instead. As experts have pointed out, simple measures like water recycling and water price increases could help immensely.
My comment:
(a) Please read the first and second paragraphs, and quotation above. That is enough.
(b) "Scientists have pointed out that the pika prefers long grass and that its visibility is a symptom, not a cause, of grassland degradation."
(i) pika
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pika
(The name "pika" appears to be derived from the Tungus [qv] piika; native to cold climates; about 15 to 23 centimetres (5.9 to 9.1 in) in body length, depending on species; herbivores; do not hibernate, so they generally spend time during the summer collecting and storing food they will eat over the winter)
* Tungus 通古斯語, spoken by 通古斯族 presently living in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria
(ii) The sentence means pikas like to live in grassland with long grass. So when one sees the holes--and its underground living space--there is little or no grass to hide them (holes). Pikas do not cause that (grassland degradation), but rather put up with it.
(c) "In Qinghai province, the government is building a barrage of new roadways from the capital of Xining to the southern city of Yushu."
Yushu City, Qinghai 青海省玉树藏族自治州 玉树市
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yushu_City,_Qinghai