Headlines 01/10/10

Here are my thoughts on today’s headlines. Everything but the titles is written by yours truly.

For today’s headline; a look at China…

Building canal network to divert water to capital ‘on par with the Great Wall’ by Barbara Demick:

China’s capital is in desperate need of water, so the government has planned an elaborate system of canals to reroute the country’s entire water system to bring water to Beijing.

Opposition to the longterm project says that not only will the rerouting of rivers cause harm to the country’s ecosystems, but it will also “rob” other parts of China of their water supply.

And the project is expensive.

In recent years, water has been referred to as “blue gold,” hinting that because of its unequal distribution throughout the world and its necessity to survival, it will, like gold, become a highly sought after “commodity.” A present day example of the value of water: China is literally re-plumbing its entire nation, uprooting hundreds of thousands of people and spending $62 billion to satisfy Beijing’s needs. Now that is a lot of gold.

But is it worth it?

Evidently it’s not a matter of whether or not the country goes into debt versus mass de-hydration, but whether or not the project is more practical than “buying” water or trading for it.

Should the project not prove as successful as planned, the results could be disastrous. And not just because of the debt or lack of water, but because of the people’s faith in the government.

To quote the article in the Vancouver Sun, citizen Yao Ziliang said that “of course, [the project] will bring water to Beijing. The party would not lie to us.”

What will happen, to both the people and the government, if the party can’t bring water to Beijing?