Select language:
 
  Learn Chinese Forum,中国語の勉強フォーラム,对外汉语论坛,Apprendre le chinois,Chinesisch Lernen,Aprender Chino,중국어도 배우고,Imparare Cinese,Aprenda Chinês  Living in China...  Chinese Culture...  Can China save the Yellow—its Mother River?
Previous Previous
 
Next Next
New Post 2/11/2009 12:30 PM
ChineseTime Service Find classmate Demo Course My Course Learn Chinese characters Flashcard Chinese Test
  shuai
1199 posts
1st


Can China save the Yellow—its Mother River? 

Can China save the Yellow—its Mother River?

By Brook Larmer
Photograph by Greg Girard

yellow river

Not a drop of rain has fallen in months, and the only clouds come from sandstorms lashing across the desert. But as the Yellow River bends through the barren landscape of north-central China, a startling vision shimmers on the horizon: emerald green rice fields, acres of yellow sunflowers, lush tracts of corn, wheat, and wolfberry—all flourishing under a merciless sky.

This is no mirage. The vast oasis in northern Ningxia, near the midpoint of the Yellow River's 3,400-mile journey from the Plateau of Tibet to the Bo Hai sea, has survived for more than 2,000 years, ever since the Qin emperor dispatched an army of peasant engineers to build canals and grow crops for soldiers manning the Great Wall. Shen Xuexiang is trying to carry on that tradition today. Lured here three decades ago by the seemingly limitless supply of water, the 55-year-old farmer cultivates cornfields that lie between the ruins of the Great Wall and the silt-laden waters of the Yellow River. From the bank of an irrigation canal, Shen gazes over the green expanse and marvels at the river's power: "I always thought this was the most beautiful place under heaven."

But this earthly paradise is disappearing fast. The proliferation of factories, farms, and cities—all products of China's spectacular economic boomis sucking the Yellow River dry. What water remains is being poisoned. From the canal bank, Shen points to another surreal flash of color: blood-red chemical waste gushing from a drainage pipe, turning the water a garish purple. This canal, which empties into the Yellow River, once teemed with fish and turtles, he says. Now its water is too toxic to use even for irrigation; two of Shen's goats died within hours of drinking from the canal.

The deadly pollution comes from the phalanx of chemical and pharmaceutical factories above Shen's fields, in Shizuishan, now considered one of the most polluted cities in the world. A robust man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut, Shen has repeatedly petitioned the environmental bureau to stop the unregulated dumping. The local official in charge of enforcement responded by deeming Shen's property "uninhabitable." Declaring that nothing else could be done, the official then left for a new job promoting the very industrial park he was supposed to be policing. "We are slowly poisoning ourselves," says Shen, shaking with anger. "How can they let this happen to our Mother River?"

Few waterways capture the soul of a nation more deeply than the Yellow, or the Huang, as it's known in China. It is to China what the Nile is to Egypt: the cradle of civilization, a symbol of enduring glory, a force of nature both feared and revered. From its mystical source in the 14,000-foot Tibetan highlands, the river sweeps across the northern plains where China's original inhabitants first learned to till and irrigate, to make porcelain and gunpowder, to build and bury imperial dynasties. But today, what the Chinese call the Mother River is dying. Stained with pollution, tainted with sewage, crowded with ill-conceived dams, it dwindles at its mouth to a lifeless trickle. There were many days during the 1990s that the river failed to reach the sea at all.

The demise of the legendary river is a tragedy whose consequences extend far beyond the more than 150 million people it sustains. The Yellow's plight also illuminates the dark side of China's economic miracle, an environmental crisis that has led to a shortage of the one resource no nation can live without: water.

Water has always been precious in China, a country with roughly the same amount of water as the United States but nearly five times the population. The shortage is especially acute in the arid north, where nearly half of China's population lives on only 15 percent of its water. These accidents of history and geography made China vulnerable; a series of man-made shocks are now pushing it over the edge. Global warming is accelerating the retreat of the glaciers that feed China's major rivers even as it hastens the advance of deserts that now swallow up a million acres of grassland each year.

Nothing, however, has precipitated the water crisis more than three decades of breakneck industrial growth. China's economic boom has, in a ruthless symmetry, fueled an equal and opposite environmental collapse. In its race to become the world's next superpower, China is not only draining its rivers and aquifers with abandon; it is also polluting what's left so irreversibly that the World Bank warns of "catastrophic consequences for future generations."

If that sounds like hyperbole, consider what is happening already in the Yellow River Basin. The spread of deserts is creating a dust bowl that may dwarf that of the American West in the 1930s, driving down grain production and pushing millions of "environmental refugees" off the land. The poisonous toxins choking the waterways—50 percent of the Yellow River is considered biologically dead—have led to a spike in cases of cancer, birth defects, and waterborne disease along their banks. Pollution-related protests have jumped—there were 51,000 across China in 2005 alone—and could metastasize into social unrest. Any one of these symptoms, if unchecked, could hinder China's growth and reverberate across world markets. Taken together, the long-term impact could be even more devastating. As Premier Wen Jiabao has put it, the shortage of clean water threatens "the survival of the Chinese nation."

The Yellow River's epic journey across northern China is a prism through which to see the country's unfolding water crisis. From the Tibetan nomads leaving their ancestral lands near the river's source to the "cancer villages" languishing in silence near the delta, the Mother River puts a human face on the costs of environmental destruction. But it also shows how this emergency is shocking the government—and a small cadre of environmental activists—into action. The fate of the Yellow River still hangs in the balance.

Sitting on a ridge nearly three miles above sea level, a rosy-cheeked Tibetan herder with two gold teeth looks out over the highlands her family has roamed for generations. It is a scene of stark beauty: rolling hills blanketed by sprouts of summer grass; herds of yaks and sheep grazing on distant slopes; and in the foreground a clear, shallow stream that is the beginning of the Yellow River. "This is sacred land," says the woman, a 39-year-old mother of four named Erla Zhuoma, recalling how her family of nomads would rotate through here to graze their 600 sheep and 150 yaks. No longer, she says, shaking her head in dismay. "The drought has changed everything."

The first signs of trouble emerged several years ago, when the region's lakes and rivers began drying up and grasslands started withering away, turning the search for her animals' food and water into marathon expeditions. Chinese scientists say the drought is a symptom of global warming and overgrazing. But Zhuoma blames the misfortune on outsiders—members of the ethnic Han Chinese majority—who angered the gods by mining for gold in a holy mountain nearby and fishing in the sacred lakes at the Yellow River's source. How else could she comprehend the death by starvation of more than half of her animals? Fearing further losses, Zhuoma and her husband accepted a government offer to sell off the rest in exchange for a thousand-dollar annual stipend and a concrete-block house in a resettlement camp near the town of Madoi. The herders are now the herded, nomads with nowhere to go.

China's water crisis begins on the roof of the world, where the country's three renowned rivers (the Yellow, the Yangtze, and the Mekong) originate. The glaciers and vast underground springs of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau—known as China's "water tower"—supply nearly 50 percent of the Yellow River's volume. But a hotter, drier climate is sending the delicate ecosystem into shock. Average temperatures in the region are increasing, according to the Chinese weather bureau, and could rise as much as three to five degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Already, more than 3,000 of the 4,077 lakes in Qinghai Province's Madoi County have disappeared, and the dunes of the high desert lap menacingly at those that remain. The glaciers, meanwhile, are shrinking at a rate of 7 percent a year. Melting ice may add water to the river in the short term, but scientists say the long-term consequences could be fatal to the Yellow.

To save its great rivers, Beijing is performing a sort of technological rain dance, with the most ambitious cloud-seeding program in the world. During summer months, artillery and planes bombard the clouds above the Yellow River's source area with silver iodide crystals, around which moisture can collect and become heavy enough to fall as rain. In Madoi, where the thunderous explosions keep Zhuoma's family awake at night, the meteorologists staffing the weather station say the "big gun" project is increasing rainfall and helping replenish glaciers near the Yellow River's source. Local Tibetans, however, believe the rockets, by angering the gods once more, are perpetuating the drought.

Like thousands of resettled Tibetan refugees across Qinghai, Zhuoma mourns the end of an ancient way of life. The family's wealth, once measured by the size of its herds, has dwindled to the few adornments she wears: three silver rings, a stone necklace, and her two gold teeth. Zhuoma has no job, and her husband, who rents a tractor to make local deliveries, earns three dollars on a good day. Not long ago the family ate meat every day; now they get by on noodles and fried dough. "We have no choice but to adjust," she says. "What else can we do?" From her concrete home, Zhuoma can still see the silvery beginnings of the Yellow River, but her relationship to the water and the land—to her heritage—has been lost forever.

"What are you doing?" the security guard demands. "Nothing," replies the stocky woman lurking outside the gates of the paper mill, tucking her secret weapon—a handheld global positioning device—under her sweater. The guard eyes her for a minute, and the woman, a 51-year-old laid-off factory worker named Jiang Lin, holds her breath. When he turns away, she pulls out the GPS and quickly locks in the paper mill's coordinates.

As an employee of Green Camel Bell, an environmental group in the western city of Lanzhou, Jiang is following up on a tip that the mill is dumping untreated chemical waste into a tributary of the Yellow River. There are hundreds of such factories around Lanzhou, a former Silk Road trading post that has morphed into a petrochemical hub. In 2006 three industrial spills here made the Yellow River run red. Another turned it white. This one is tainting the tributary a toxic shade of maroon. When Jiang gets back to the office, the GPS data will be emailed to Beijing and uploaded onto a Web-based "pollution map" for the whole world to see.

For all of Lanzhou's pride in being the first and biggest city along the Yellow River, it is better known for its massive discharge of industrial and human waste. But even here there is a glimmer of hope: the first seedlings of environmental activism, which may be the only chance for the river's salvation. In the mid-1990s a mere handful of environmental groups existed in China. Today there are several thousand, including Green Camel Bell. Jiang Lin's 25-year-old son, Zhao Zhong, founded the group in 2004 to help clean up the city and protect the Yellow River. With only five paid staff, Green Camel Bell is a shoestring operation kept afloat by grants from an American NGO, Pacific Environment. The name they chose, after the reassuring bells worn by camels in Silk Road caravans, is meant to be "a sign of life," says Jiang. "The bell is supposed to give hope to everyone who hears it."

At long last Beijing appears willing to listen. After three decades blindly pursuing growth, the government is starting to grapple with the environmental costs. The impact is not simply monetary, though the World Bank calculates that environmental damage robs China of 5.8 percent of its GDP each year. It is also social: Irate citizens last year flooded the government with hundreds of thousands of official environmental complaints. Whether to save the environment or stave off social unrest, Beijing has adopted ambitious goals, aiming for a 30 percent reduction in water consumption and a 10 percent decrease in pollution discharges by 2010.

Yet despite the good intentions, the crisis is only getting worse, reflecting Beijing's loss of control over the country's growth-hungry provinces. Leading environmental lawyer Wang Canfa estimates that "only 10 percent of environmental laws are enforced." Unable to count on its own bureaucracy, Beijing has warily embraced the media and grassroots activists to help pressure local industry. But pity the ecological crusader who speaks out too much. He could end up like Wu Lihong, an activist who was jailed and allegedly tortured last year for publicizing the toxic algal blooms in central China's Tai Lake.

Back in the Green Camel Bell office, Jiang stresses the group's cordial relations with local authorities. "The government has been working hard to stop factories from dumping," she says. Nevertheless, along her office wall stand plastic bottles filled with water discharged by factories and ranging in color from yellow to magenta—all unanalyzed for lack of funds. Even with its modest resources, Green Camel Bell has mobilized volunteers to help survey the ecology of the 24-mile section of the Yellow River that flows through Lanzhou. Their most important, and stealthiest, work is publicly exposing the most egregious polluters. It's enough to give a laid-off worker a sense of power and purpose. "I feel like a detective," says Jiang, laughing about her narrow escape at the paper mill. "But ordinary people like me have to get involved. Pollution is a problem that affects us all."

Two hundred miles northeast of Lanzhou, the Yellow River carves a path through the desolate expanse of Ningxia, revealing a problem with even more devastating long-term consequences than pollution: water scarcity. China starts at a disadvantage, supporting 20 percent of the world's population with just 7 percent of its fresh water. But it is far worse here in Ningxia, a bone-dry region enduring its worst drought in recorded history. For millennia the Yellow River was Ningxia's salvation; today the waterway is wasting away. Near the city of Yinchuan, the river's once mighty current is reduced to a narrow channel. Locals blame the river's depletion on the lack of rain. But the biggest culprit is the extravagant misuse of water by rapidly expanding farms, factories, and cities.

Perhaps every revolution, even a capitalist one, eats its children. But the pace at which China is squandering its most precious resource is staggering. Judicious releases of reservoir water have averted the embarrassment of recent years, when the Yellow River ran completely dry. But the river's outflow remains just 10 percent of the level 40 years ago. Where has all the water gone? Agriculture siphons off more than 65 percent, half of which is lost in leaky pipes and ditches. Heavy industry and burgeoning cities swallow the rest. Water in China, free until 1985, is still so heavily subsidized that conservation and efficiency are largely alien concepts. And the siege of the Yellow River isn't about to stop: In 2007 the government approved 52 billion dollars in coal mining and chemical industries to be installed along a 500-mile stretch of the river north of Yinchuan.

Such frenzied growth may soon fall victim to the very water crisis it has helped create. Of the some 660 cities in China, more than 400 lack sufficient water, with more than a hundred of these suffering severe shortages. (Beijing is chronically short of water too, but it will be spared during the Olympics, thanks to engineering feats that divert water from the Yellow River.) In a society increasingly divided between urban and rural, rich and poor, it is China's vast countryside—and its 738 million peasants—that bears the brunt of the water shortage.

The lack of water is already hindering China's grain production, fueling concerns about future shocks to global grain markets, where even modest price hikes can have a disastrous effect on the poor. Wang Shucheng, China's former minister of water resources, put the situation dramatically: "To fight for every drop of water or die, that is the challenge facing China."

For Sun Baocheng, a sunbaked 37-year-old farmer from the central Ningxia village of Yanghe, this challenge is not merely rhetorical excess. Two years ago, after their wells and rain buckets went dry from drought, all 36 families in Yanghe abandoned their village to the encroaching desert. They came to a valley called Hongsipu, where more than 400,000 environmental refugees have settled for one reason: It has water, delivered by a Kuwaiti-funded aqueduct that snakes across the scrub desert from the Yellow River, 20 miles to the north. The Yanghe villagers have settled in a row of single-room brick houses near the concrete aqueduct, tending plots of land given by the Chinese government (along with about $25 a person) as part of a program to alleviate poverty and desertification.

Even though Sun is barely able to coax a few stalks of corn out of the sandy soil, he is inspired by the flourishing crops—and growing wealth—of more established refugees. "If we hadn't left our old village and come here," he says, "we wouldn't have survived." The Mother River, once again, is giving life. But with all the pressures on its dwindling water, one wonders: What will creating another oasis in the desert do to the river's own chances of survival?

Mao Zedong's mantra—"Sacrifice one family, save 10,000 families"—is still seared into Wang Yangxi's memory. Like the Chinese emperors before him, Chairman Mao was obsessed with taming the Yellow River, the life-giving force whose changes of course also unleashed devastating floods, earning it the enduring sobriquet "China's Sorrow." When, in 1957, construction began on the massive dam at Sanmenxia, on the river's middle section, 400,000 people—including Wang—lost their homes. Mao's slogan convinced them it was a noble sacrifice. "We were proud to help the national cause," says Wang, now 83. "We've had nothing but misery ever since."

The idea of conquest has driven China's approach to nature ever since Yu the Great, first ruler of the Xia dynasty, allegedly declared some 4,000 years ago: "Whoever controls the Yellow River controls China." Mao took this, like much else, to extremes. His biggest monument to man's power over nature—the 350-foot-tall Sanmenxia Dam—is a case study in the danger of unintended consequences. The dam has tamed the lower third of the Yellow River by turning it into what one commentator has called "the country's biggest irrigation ditch." But the impact upriver has been disastrous, due to a stunning lack of foresight. Engineers failed to account for the colossal amount of yellowish silt (more than three times the sediment discharge of the Mississippi) that gives the river its name. By mismanaging the silt, Sanmenxia has caused as many floods as it has prevented, ruined as many lives as it has saved, and compelled the construction of another huge dam simply to correct its mistakes. One of Sanmenxia's original engineers even recommends blowing up the whole thing.

Wang would be the first to volunteer for such a mission. Husking cotton on his doorstep in Taolingzhai village, about 30 miles west of Sanmenxia, the bristle-haired former schoolteacher recalls a life whose every tragic twist has been shaped by the dam. After Wang and his family were evicted from this fertile land during the dam's construction, they were banished to a desert region 500 miles away. Nearly a third of the refugees died of starvation during Mao's Great Leap Forward, he says. Eventually, half of the survivors straggled home. Wang now farms land near the junction of the Wei and Yellow Rivers. But even here, he is not safe. When heavy rains fall, the Sanmenxia reservoir backs up, pushing polluted water over the banks. Three floods in five years have destroyed his cotton crops and poisoned the village's drinking supply. "All of our young people have left," says Wang. "There's no future here."

Unlike Mao's little red book, the Sanmenxia Dam is hardly a relic of the past. China now boasts nearly half of the world's 50,000 large dams—three times more than the United States—and construction continues. A cascade of 20 major dams already interrupt the Yellow River, and another 18 are scheduled to be built by 2030. Grassroots resistance to dams has emerged, most famously over the forced resettlement of more than a million people by the Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam, but to little effect. Ma Jun, a prominent environmentalist, says dams on the Yellow River are especially harmful, since they exacerbate the twin threats of pollution and scarcity. The reduced water flow destroys the river's ability to flush out heavy pollutants, even as standing reservoirs allow a badly overused river to be drained even further. "Why cannot human beings give up their ruthless ambition of harnessing and controlling nature," Ma asks, "and choose instead to live in harmony with it?"

The simple answer: Beijing is still addicted to growth. The economic boom has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, and the Communist Party's legitimacy, perhaps even its survival, depends on continued expansion. China's leaders pay lip service to conservation and efficiency as a solution to the north's chronic water shortage. But rather than raise the price of water to true market levels—a move that would surely alienate both the masses and big industry—they have opted instead for another pharaonic feat of engineering: the South-to-North Water Transfer Project. The 62-billion-dollar canal system, which is designed to relieve pressure on the Yellow River, will siphon some 12 trillion gallons of water a year from the Yangtze Basin and send it 700 miles north, passing beneath the Yellow in two places. It's no surprise, given the Olympian scale of the project, that it—like Sanmenxia—originated as one of Mao's pipe dreams.

Even as other parts of China careened through droughts and floods in past decades, the village of Xiaojiadian enjoyed a steady supply of fresh water by virtue of its location on a tributary of the Yellow River, less than 200 miles from where it spills into the sea. But the waters, once a source of life, have turned deadly. Nobody here likes to talk about the plague that has struck the village, but the scar running down the chest of a gaunt farmer named Xiao Sizhu has its own eloquence. It shows precisely where doctors tried to remove the cancerous tumor gnawing at his esophagus. In between bites of sodden bread—one of the only foods he can digest—Xiao, 55, whispers about the old days, when his family felt lucky to live in this well-watered corner of the river basin, in eastern Shandong Province. Over the past two decades, however, a parade of tanneries, paper mills, and factories arrived upstream, dumping waste directly into the river. Xiao used to swim and fish in the eddy next to the village well. Now, he says, "I never go close to the water because it smells awful and has foam on top."

Another place he avoids is the grove of poplar trees outside the village, with its burial mounds stretching to the river's edge. In the past five years more than 70 people in this hamlet of 1,300 have died of stomach or esophageal cancer. More than a thousand others in 16 neighboring villages have also succumbed. Yu Baofa, a leading Shandong oncologist who has studied the villages of Dongping County, calls it "the cancer capital of the world." He says the incidence of esophageal cancer in the area is 25 times higher than the national average.

The more than four billion tons of wastewater dumped annually into the Yellow River, accounting for a full 10 percent of the river's volume, has pushed into extinction a third of the river's native fish species and made long stretches unfit even for irrigation. Now comes the human toll. In a 2007 report China's Ministry of Health blamed air and water pollution for an alarming rise in cancer rates across China since 2005—19 percent in urban areas and 23 percent in the countryside. Nearly two-thirds of China's rural population, more than 500 million people, use water contaminated by human or industrial waste. It's little wonder that gastrointestinal cancer is now the number one killer in the countryside.

The ubiquity of pollution-related disease is cold comfort to the villagers in Xiaojiadian, who live in fear and shame. The fear is understandable: 16 more cases of cancer were diagnosed in the village last year. The shame, however, has deeper roots. Even though officials told villagers the epidemic likely stems from the drinking well by the poisoned river, many locals believe cancer comes from an imbalance of chi, or life force, which is said to occur more frequently in those with quick tempers or bad characters.

Like most victims, Xiao suffered in silence in his house for nearly a year, hiding his symptoms even from the local doctor. Medical bills have since wiped out his savings, and the tumor has reduced his voice to a whisper. Even so, Xiao is one of the few willing to speak out. "If we don't talk, nothing gets done," he rasps, spitting up phlegm into a plastic cup. The government recently built a new well 11 miles away and sent in teams of doctors. But Xiao says officials might not have paid attention to Xiaojiadian had a villager not tipped off a reporter at a Chinese television station two years before. Now Xiao only has one regret: that he didn't speak out earlier. "It might have saved me," he says.

A few months pass, and a fresh earthen mound appears in the grove of poplar trees by the river. The grave has no tombstone, just some bamboo sticks and a few aluminum cookie wrappers rustling in the breeze. Xiao has come to the place he long avoided, joining friends and neighbors who were stalked by the same waterborne assassin. Is it a cruel irony or just the natural order that their final resting place overlooks the very river that likely killed them?

It is too late to save Xiao Sizhu, but there remains a flicker of hope that the Yellow River can be rescued. China's leaders, aware of the peril their country faces, now vow "to build an ecological civilization," setting aside almost 200 billion dollars a year for the environment. But the future depends equally on ordinary citizens such as activists Zhao Zhong and his mother, the intrepid Jiang Lin. Remember that Lanzhou paper mill Jiang locked in with her GPS? Not long after the information went up on the Internet, the government shut down the mill, along with 30 other factories dumping poison into tributaries of the Yellow River.

"Maybe the impact of one single person is small," says Zhao. "But when it is combined with others, the power can be huge."


Free Trail Chinese Lesson

Learn Chinese Face-to-face in shanghai china.
Learn Chinese online with live chinese teacher.
Add Skype ID: chinesetimeschool
MSN:          chinesetime@live.com
Email:        contactus@chinesetime.cn

 
New Post 2/11/2009 12:36 PM
ChineseTime Service Find classmate Demo Course My Course Learn Chinese characters Flashcard Chinese Test
  shuai
1199 posts
1st


Can China save the Yellow—its Mother River?中国能拯救它的母亲河—黄河? 

 

中国能拯救它的母亲河—黄河?

简介:从黄河源头的雪域高原,到干涸断裂的宁夏荒漠,再到癌症肆虐的滨河村落,没有一处,黄河没有滴下肝肠寸断的血泪……
从肆无忌惮的污水排放,到设计不周的座座水坝,再到水资源的严重短缺……
母亲河在哭泣,你听到了吗?

huanghe

数月内滴水未下,天空中仅有的云朵还是来自肆虐着这片不毛之地的沙尘暴。但由于黄河沿着华中华北这片贫瘠的土地蜿蜒而流,一副令人瞠目结舌的景象在地平线上熠熠闪光:翡翠绿般的稻田,数公顷金黄的向日葵,大片大片葱翠的玉米、小麦和枸杞——天空虽残酷无情,但是一切都欣欣向荣。

这不是梦幻景象。黄河发源于西藏高原,终入渤海,流程达3,400公里。宁夏北部的这片广袤的绿洲就位于黄河的中点附近。早在秦始皇派遣农民水利工程师为建造长城的士兵修渠种田之时,这片绿洲就已存在了,到现在也有两千多年的历史了。沈学祥如今正试图继承这一传统。三十年前,沈学祥被这里似乎取之不尽的水源吸引过来,现年55岁的他还在长城废墟和黄河那泥沙水域之间种植着玉米地。沈学祥在一条灌溉水渠的岸边凝视着蔓延开来的绿田,惊叹着黄河的神奇:“我过去总认为,这是天底下最美丽的地方。”

但是这块人间天堂正在快速消逝。工厂、农田和城市的激增——中国引人注目的经济繁荣的所有产物正在吸干黄河。剩下的水也正在遭受严重污染。在水渠岸边,沈学祥指向另一种离奇的颜色:血红的化学污染物从一条排污管道里喷涌而出,将水染成刺眼的紫色。他说,汇入黄河的这条水渠曾经满是鱼龟。现在水渠中的水毒性太大,都不能用来灌溉了;沈学祥的两只羊饮用了里面的水数小时后就死了。

这些致命的污染物来自沈学祥农田的上方石嘴山市密密麻麻的化学制药厂,而石嘴山市被视为世界上污染最为严重的城市之一。沈学祥精力充沛、留着黑白相间的平头,他一再向当地环保局请愿,要求停止这种不受管制的倾倒行为。当地执法官员回应说,认为沈学祥的房屋“不适合居住”。执法官员宣称别无他法后,就离任到他本应执法的工业园里寻求一份新的任职。“我们在慢性服毒自杀,”沈学祥说,气得发抖。“他们怎么能这样对待我们的母亲河?”

很少有河流能像黄河这样深深地捕获一个民族的心灵。黄河之于中国,就像尼罗河之于埃及:文明之摇篮,不朽荣耀之象征,既令人恐惧又让人敬畏的自然之力。黄河发端于14,000 英尺高西藏高原的神秘源头,流经华北平原。正是在华北平原,中国最初的定居者第一次学会了耕田灌溉,第一次学会了制作瓷器和火药,第一次学会了兴建和埋葬帝国王朝。但是时至今日,中国人所称的母亲河正在走向消亡。污染物浸染、下水管废水污染,再加上设计拙劣而又拥挤不堪的水坝,黄河跌跌撞撞,流到入海口,已是一条奄奄一息的潺潺细流。二十世纪九十年代,黄河断流过许多时日。

这条具有传奇色彩河流的消亡是个悲剧,其后果远远超过了它哺育着1.5亿的人口。黄河的困境同样显现出中国经济奇迹的阴暗面,即环境危机,其已导致任何一个民族生存都不可或缺的一种资源的短缺:水。

水在中国总是非常宝贵,因为中国的水资源总量与美国大致一样,但人口却接近美国的五倍。干旱的华北地区水资源短缺尤为尖锐,这里居住着中国近一半的人口,却仅拥有15%的水资源。历史和地理上的这些偶然因素使得中国暴露在威胁之下;而一系列人为因素现在又将其推向了威胁的悬崖边上。沙漠现在每年吞噬着中国一百万公顷的草地,而全球变暖在使得沙漠提前到来的同时,它又在使冰川后退加速,而这些冰川又供给着中国主要的河流。

然而,促成水危机的罪魁祸首莫过于中国三十年惊人的工业发展。中国的经济繁荣以一种无情的对称方式促发了一场程度相当但反向的环境破坏。在成为世界上下一个超级大国的竞赛中,中国不仅毫无节制地把污水排放到其河流和水渠中;它对剩余水源的污染也到了不可逆转的地步,以致世界银行警告称会“对子孙后代造成灾难性的后果”。

如果这耸人听闻的话,那么考虑一下已经在黄河盆地所发生的事情吧。沙漠的扩散正在形成一个尘暴区,与此相比,二十世纪三十年代美国西进运动所形成的尘暴区就显得相形见绌了。这一尘暴区在降低粮食产量的同时又迫使成百上千的“环境难民”背井离乡。充斥着河道的有害毒素——50%的黄河流段被认为能致生物死亡——已经导致沿岸癌症、出生缺陷以及水生传染疾病病例的激增。和污染相关的抗议活动已经激增——全中国仅2005年一年就有51,000起——而且可能恶化为社会动荡。如果不经遏制,任何一个症状都可能妨碍中国的经济增长并在整个世界市场造成动荡。若将这些症状综合来看,那么长远的影响会更具毁灭性。正如温家宝总理所说,清洁水资源的短缺威胁着“中华民族的生存”。

黄河在华北地区史诗般的旅程是块棱镜,从中折射出中国还未完全展开的水危机。从黄河发源地附近的藏族牧民离开他们祖先的土地到河口三角洲附近默默痛苦地承受着折磨的“癌症村”,这条母亲河以亲身实例让人们明白环境破坏的代价。但是它也显示出这场危机是如何让中国政府——以及一小股环保积极分子——感到震惊并采取行动的。黄河的命运依然悬而未决。

坐在海拔近三公里的山脊上,一位面颊红润镶有两颗金牙的牧民眺望着她的家族时代游牧的高原。那是一片令人窒息的美丽景象:夏草覆盖着延绵起伏的群山;成群的牦牛和绵羊在远处的山坡上啃着青草;而在那最突起的地方,一条清澈的浅溪就是黄河的源头。“这是一片神圣的土地,”那个妇女说道,她名叫娥拉·卓玛,有四个孩子,回忆着她的游牧家庭如何在这里轮流来给他们的600只羊和150头牦牛喂草的。不复存在了,她说道,沮丧地摇着头。“干旱已经改变了一切。”

困境的最初信号在几年之前就出现了,当时这一地区的湖泊河流开始逐渐干涸,草场开始枯萎,使得为其动物寻找食物和水源变成一次次马拉松般的征程。中国科学家说干旱是全球变暖和过度放牧的一种征兆。但是卓玛把这种不幸归咎于外来者——成群结队的汉族人——他们在附近神圣的山上铸矿淘金,在黄河源头圣洁的湖泊里捕鱼打捞,这些举动都惹怒了那些神灵。对于她的动物中一大半饿死这一现象,她还能怎样理解呢?由于担心进一步损失,卓玛和她丈夫接受了政府的提议,卖掉剩余的动物来换取每年1000美元的补助金和位于玛多城附近的一个安置点的一座水泥砖房屋。牧民现在被安置了起来,也就没有地方游牧了。

中国的水危机始于世界屋脊,即中国三大河流(黄河、长江和澜沧江)的发源地。冰川和青藏高原储量巨大的地下泉水——称为中国的“水塔”——供应着黄河近 50%的水量。但是不断变暖、变干的气候正在使脆弱的生态系统变得岌岌可危。中国气象局称,该地区的平均温度正在升高,而且到本世纪末可能升高多达三至五摄氏度。青海省玛多县原有4,077个湖泊,其中3,000多个已经消失,而且高原沙漠的土丘也在虎视眈眈盘踞在剩余湖泊的周围。与此同时,冰川正在以每年百分之七的速度缩小。短期内融化的冰可能会补给河流水位,但是科学家称冰川融化的长期后果对于黄河而言可能是致命的。

为了拯救中国的大河,北京使用世界上最富雄心的播云计划,展现着富含技术性的雨之舞。夏季的几个月份里,炮弹和飞机用银色碘化晶体轰炸开黄河源头上空的云层,这样,水汽就能围着这些碘化晶体聚集并变得足够重并形成降雨。在玛多县,卓玛的家人在夜间被雷鸣般的爆破声惊醒,而供职于气象台的气象学家则称“巨枪”工程正在增加降雨量并有助于补充黄河源头附近的冰川。然而,当地的藏族居民则认为,火箭弹再次惹怒了神灵,干旱将挥之不去。

像青海省成千上万名重新被安置的藏族难民一样,卓玛为那种古老生活方式的终结感到悲伤。曾经以牧群多寡来衡量的家庭财富如今缩减为卓玛身上穿戴的为数可怜的几件饰品:三件银耳环,一件石质项链和她的两颗金牙。卓玛没有工作,她丈夫租了一辆拖拉机在当地跑运输,生意不错时,一天能挣三美元。不久前,这个家庭天天荤菜不断;现如今靠面条和油炸面团糊口。“我们别无选择,只能适应,”她说。“我们还能做什么?”从她那水泥屋里,卓玛仍能看到黄河那银灿灿的源头,但是她与那片河水、那片土地——和她的传统——的联系永远消失了。

“你在干什么?”保安质问。“没干什么,”潜伏在造纸厂门外的那个敦实的妇女答道,赶紧把她的秘密武器——一个手持式全球定位仪——掖到她的毛衣下面。保安盯了她一分钟,这位名叫姜琳的51岁下岗工人屏住了呼吸。保安转身离开后,她抽出那个GPS并迅速锁定了这家造纸厂的地理坐标。

姜琳是兰州市一家名叫绿驼铃的环保组织的员工。目前她正在依据提示进一步调查那家造纸厂向黄河的一条支流排放未经处理的化学污水一事。类似的工厂在兰州周围有成百上千家,也使得兰州从曾经丝绸之路上的一个贸易驿站变成如今的石化中心。2006年,这里的三起工业泄露事故曾将黄河染红。另一起将黄河漂白。而这次的污染物正将这条支流笼罩在有毒的栗色的阴影之下。姜琳返回办公室后,将把那些GPS数据电邮至北京,然后上传到网上的“污染地图”,供全世界查看。

兰州所有的骄傲在于它是黄河沿岸首个也是最大的城市,但是兰州更以其大量的工业和人类废物排放量而为世人知晓。但是,即使是在这儿,也存有一丝希望:第一颗环保主义的幼苗破土而出,或许这是拯救黄河的唯一机会。二十世纪九十年代中期,中国只有一小撮环保组织。今天,包括绿驼铃在内,中国已有几千家环保组织。为了清洁兰州、保护黄河,姜琳25岁的儿子赵忠于2004年成立了绿驼铃之一组织。绿驼铃仅有五名带薪员工,在小规模运营,而且是在来自美国的NGO太平洋环境组织的拨款下维持生存。姜琳说:“绿驼铃这个名字取自丝绸之路上商旅用的骆驼系的保险铃,意为‘生命的信号’”。“据信,这驼铃能给任何一个听到它声响的人带来希望。”

历经磨难,北京似乎终于愿意倾听了。经过三十年盲目追求经济增长后,中国政府开始努力应对其所付出的环境代价。尽管世界银行估计,环境损害每年会剥去中国GDP中5.8%的比重,但是这一影响不单单是钱那么简单。它也是关乎社会:去年愤怒的市民把不计其数的投诉信汇至政府。不管是拯救环境还是阻止社会动荡,北京已经制订了雄心勃勃的目标,在2010年前,降低耗水30%,减少污染排放量10%。

然而,尽管其用心良苦,但水危机只在不断恶化,这反映了北京对于对经济增长如饥似渴的省份的失控。知名环保律师王粲发估计“仅有百分之十的环保案件被执行”。无法仰仗自己的政府机构,北京正在小心谨慎地欢迎媒体和草根阶层的积极分子帮忙给地方工业施压。但是过多说出真相也让人们为这些生态斗士感到惋惜。吴艺红是位环保积极人士,去年因为公开发表华中地区太湖的毒藻繁殖而被关进监狱并在没有证据的情况下用刑折磨。吴艺红的处境可能就是环保斗士的命运。

回到绿驼铃办公室,姜琳强调绿驼铃和当局的友好联系。她说:“政府始终致力于制止工厂倾倒污染物。”尽管如此,她办公室的墙边排放着些塑料瓶子,里面装满了工厂排放出的水,颜色从黄变到品红——这些样品均因为资金短缺而无法分析。即使是利用其微薄的资源,绿驼铃已经动员志愿者帮忙调查流经兰州的长达24公里的黄河截断的生态状况。他们最重要同时也是最隐秘的工作是曝光臭名昭著的污染者。这足以给一个下岗工人一种权力感和意志力。“我觉得自己像个侦探,”姜琳说,对自己从造纸厂死里逃生一笑置之。“但是像我这样的普通人必须参与其中。污染这个问题影响着我们每一个人。”

兰州东北两百公里处,黄河穿越了宁夏那片杳无人烟的广袤土地,显露出一个比污染带有更具灾难性的长期后果的问题:水资源短缺。中国从一开始就处于劣势,用仅占世界百分之七的淡水养活着占世界人口总数百分之二十的人口。但水资源短缺在宁夏这里更为严重,这一干裂地区承受着有记录以来最为严重的干旱。几千年来,黄河曾是宁夏的救星;今天黄河河道正在削弱。在银川市附近,黄河曾经咆哮的水流减小成一条狭窄的水沟。当地人把河水的减少归咎于雨水不足。但是罪魁祸首是农田、工厂和城市的急速扩张而导致水资源的挥霍滥用。

可能每一次革命,即使是资本主义革命,都会吞噬掉自己的孩子。但是中国挥霍它最为珍贵的资源的速度让人瞠目结舌。当黄河完全断流时,适时的释放水库蓄水避免了近年来尴尬。但是黄河的流量仅相当于四十年前的百分之十。水都去哪儿了?农业抽调了黄河超过65%的水量,而其中的一半损失在开裂的管道和沟渠中。重工业和迅速发展的城市吞噬了其余用水。1985年以前,水在中国是免费资源,即使到现在,水还依然享有很高的补贴,以至于节约和效率在很大程度上还都是陌生的概念。而且黄河之困仍未纾解:2007年,政府批准了在银川北部、沿黄河500公里的地带安置煤炭开采和化学工业。

这样疯狂的经济增长可能很快就成为其一手促成的水危机的受害者。在中国约660座城市中,超过400座城市水资源不足,而其中一百多座城市遭受着严重的水资源短缺。(长期以来,北京也是缺水,但是由于引黄调水这一政绩工程,北京将在奥运期间储备水资源。)在一个城乡差距、贫富差距日益分化的社会里,正是中国的广大农村地区——以及其七亿三千八百万农民——承受着水资源短缺的冲击。

水资源短缺已经在妨碍中国的粮食产量了,并引发人们关注其对未来全球粮食市场所带来的冲击,因为在全球粮食市场中,即使轻微的价格上调都可能对穷人造成灾难性的影响。中国前水利部部长汪恕诚戏剧性地谈到这一情况:“要么为每一滴水而战,要么灭亡,这就是中国面临的挑战。”

孙宝成是一位来自宁夏中部杨河村、久经日晒的37岁的农民。对于他而言,这不仅仅是一句夸张的言辞。两年前,当他们的水井和盛雨水用的水桶因为干旱而枯竭后,洋河村全体36户人家背弃了他们的村庄,到了不断蚕食的沙漠。他们来到了一个名叫红丝圃的山谷,那里已有四十多万的环境难民因为同样的理由定居下来:那里有水,科威特资助修建的水渠经灌木荒地逶迤而行把山谷以北20公里的黄河之水输送过来。杨河村村民已在混泥土水渠附近的一排单间砖房里定居了下来,打理着政府分给他们的一块块田地(还有每人25美元),这是中国政府减轻贫困和沙漠化计划的一部分。

尽管孙宝成仅仅能从这块沙质土壤中收获不多的几个玉米棒子,但是在更多的难民中,他仍憧憬着丰茂的庄稼和财富的增长。“如果我们不离开我们原先的村庄来到这儿,”他说,“我们可能就活不成了。”母亲河又一次赐予了生命。但是考虑到黄河越来越少的河水承受的所有压力,人们不禁会问:在这片不毛之地创建又一个绿洲,对于黄河自身生存的几率有多大呢?

毛泽东的口号——“牺牲我一个,拯救千万家”——仍烙在王阳喜的记忆里。像之前的中国帝王一样,毛主席也醉心于黄河整治。黄河几易河道,它那给予生命的力量也释放着破坏性的洪水,由此,黄河长久以来也被成为“中国的恶魔”。1957年,三门峡大型水坝在黄河中游破土动工,包括王阳喜在内的400,000人流离失所。毛主席的口号使他们确信,这是一种光荣的牺牲。“为民族事业出力,我们引以为豪,”现年83岁的王阳喜说,“自那以后,除了悲痛,我们一无所有。”

自从大约四千年之前,从传说中夏朝首位统治者大禹开始,征服的观念就一直驾驭着中国自然之路:“得黄河者得天下。”像其他很多时候一样,毛主席又把这说得很极端。毛泽东人定胜天最典型的体现——350英尺高的三门峡大坝——是研究无意识后果的一个案例。三门峡水坝驯服了黄河三分之一的下游河流,将其变成了“中国最大的灌溉水渠”(评论家语)。但是对黄河上游的影响则是灾难性的,而这又源于令人震惊的预见性的缺乏。工程师们没有考虑到黄河庞大的黄沙淤泥(比密西西比河沉淀排放量的三倍还多),也正是这些黄沙淤泥给了这条河“黄河”这一名字。由于治理淤泥不当,三门峡引发的洪水与其预防的相当,吞噬的生命与其拯救的等同,而且又迫使另一座在建的巨型水坝更改其失误。三门峡当初的建造者之一甚至建议炸掉整个大坝。

王阳喜可能会是第一个想担此使命的志愿者。王阳喜原来是位乡村教师,他的家乡桃岭寨位于三门峡大坝以西三十公里处。他一边在家门口剥着棉花,一边回忆着自己的生命历程:每次悲惨曲折经历均由这座大坝造成的。大坝修建期间,王宝成和家人被赶出了这片肥沃的土地,流放到了500公里之外的荒漠里。他说:“大跃进期间,近三分之一的难民死于饥饿。”最后,一半的幸存者踉踉跄跄地回到了家中。王阳喜现在耕种着渭河和黄河交汇处附近的一块土地。但是即使在这儿,他也没有安全感。暴雨降临,三门峡水库倒流,将污水蔓延至两边的河岸上。五年来,有三场洪水毁掉了他的棉花庄稼,并污染了村庄的饮用水供应。“村里的年轻人都走了,”王阳喜说。“在这儿没有希望。”

和毛泽东的红宝书不同,三门峡很难说是过去的一个遗迹。中国现在自豪地宣称,世界上50,000座大型水坝中近一半在中国——这是美国水坝拥有量的三倍还多——而且还有水坝继续在建。已有20座大型水坝截断了黄河,而且另有18座水坝订于2030年前建成。底层民众对水坝的抵制已经出现,最有名的是对长江上三峡大坝造成的超过百万人的强制移民的抵制,但收效甚微。著名的环保人士马军说,黄河上的水坝尤为有害,因为这些大坝加剧了污染和水资源短缺的双重威胁。河水的减少削弱了黄河冲洗重质污染物的能力,而正当此时,矗立着的水库使得严重过度使用的河流更加干涸。“为什么人类不能放弃他们开发和控制自然那无情的野心呢?”马军问道,“取而代之,选择与自然和谐共处呢?”

答案很简单:北京仍沉迷于经济的增长。经济繁荣已经使几亿的中国人摆脱了贫困,再者,共产党的合法性,乃至其生存,取决于持续不断的经济扩张。中国领导人嘴上说的好听,要用节约和效率作为华北地区长期水资源短缺的解决之道。然而,非但没有把水价提高到真实的市场水平——将铁定缓减群众和大型工业状况的举动——相反,他们选择了另一项歌功颂德的政绩工程:南水北调工程。为缓解黄河压力而设计的渠道系统耗资620亿美元,将每年从长江盆地抽水120亿加仑,向北输送700公里,途径黄河,达到两个地方。考虑到奥林匹克工程的规模,这也不算惊奇。像三门峡水坝一样,这个工程也源于毛泽东的一个管道输水的梦想。

在过去的几十年间,当中国的其他地区在旱涝中颠簸前行时,肖家店村却拥有着稳定的淡水供应,这得益于其恰好位于距离黄河入海口不足200公里的一条支流之上。但是在那里,曾经的生命之源已经变成致命的毒水。这儿没人愿意谈论袭击过该村的那场瘟疫,但是胸口划有一条刀疤、形容憔悴、名叫肖思珠的农民有他自己善辩之才。那条刀口清楚地显示出,医生试图从这里将吞噬他食管的恶性肿瘤取出。一口一口咬着浸泡过的面包——这是他仅能消化的几种食物之一——现年55岁的肖思珠低声谈论着过往的岁月,当时他的家人感觉,能在位于山东省东部黄河平原的这个水质优良的角落居住是种幸运。然而,在过去的二十年里,一排皮革厂、造纸厂和工厂在上游安家落户,并将废物直接倾倒到黄河里。肖思珠过去常常在村井附近的涡流里游泳钓鱼。现在,他说,“我从不接近河水,因为它臭气熏天、泡沫漂浮。”

他回避的另一地方是村外的一片杨树林,这片树林下面的土冢延伸至黄河岸边。过去五年,在这1,300人的小村庄里,超过70个人死于胃癌或是食道癌。而在16个邻村里,亦有一千多人因此毙命。山东省著名的肿瘤学家于宝发研究了东平县的这些村落后,称其为“世界癌症之都”。他说,该地区食道癌的发病率比全国平均水平高出25倍之多。

每年有超多四十亿吨的污水倾倒进黄河,足足占到黄河容量的10%。这些污水使得黄河三分之一的野生鱼灭绝,还使得那长长的河段连灌溉都不适合。现在该人类付出生命的代价了。2007年中国卫生部发布的一份报告称,自2005年以来,因为空气和水污染,全国癌症发病率显著升高——城市地区升高了19%,乡村地区升高了23%。近三分之二的中国农村人口(5亿多人)在使用遭人类废物或是工业废物污染过的水。这样就不用惊奇,为什么说肠胃癌是农村地区的头号杀手了。

和污染相关的疾病无处不在,这对于生活在恐惧和羞耻之中的肖家店村民来说只是徒劳的安慰。恐惧可以理解:去年这个村庄又有16人被诊断为癌症病例。然而,羞耻则有更深层次的原因。尽管政府官员告诉村民,癌症的流行源于饮用了大量有毒的河水,但当地许多人还是相信癌症来自“吃”或是生命力的失衡。据说,这种失衡更常发生在脾气急躁或是品行恶劣之人身上。

和多数受害者一样,肖思珠在自己家里默默地忍受了近一年的时间,甚至将自己的症状瞒着当地的医生。自那以后,医疗账单耗尽了他的积蓄,而肿瘤已经使他的声音削弱至低声耳语。既便如此,肖思珠只是为数不多的几个愿意说出真相的人之一。“如果我们不讲,什么都做不了,”他咳嗽着说,把痰吐进一个塑料杯里。政府最近在11公里外打了一口新井,并派来了几组医疗队。但是肖思珠说,如果不是两年前一位村民向一家中国电视台暗示,政府官员可能也不会注意到肖家店。现在肖思珠只有一个遗憾:没有更早地说出真相。“要是那样的话,我可能会得救,”他说。

几个月过去了,一个新土冢出现在河边的杨树林里。坟墓没有墓碑,只有几根竹棍和一些铝制元宝在微风中沙沙作响。肖思珠来到了他曾长久避讳的地方,加入了他朋友邻居的行列,他们遭同样的水生刺客迫害。他们身后的安息之所俯视着很可能正是杀害他们的河流,难道这是一个残酷的讽刺抑或只是自然的轮回。

拯救肖思珠已为时太晚,但是拯救黄河的一丝希望尚存。中国领导人意识到国家所面临的危险,现在誓言“要建设生态文明”,每年拨付近2000亿美元的环境经费。但是未来同样也取决于赵忠与她母亲,勇敢的姜琳等普通的公民。还记得姜琳用她的GPS定位的那个兰州造纸厂吗?那则信息在网上披露不久,政府就关闭了那个造纸厂以及另外三十家向黄河支流倾倒有毒物质的工厂。

“也许单个人的影响是微不足道的,”赵忠说。“但是当人人汇聚在一起,威力就会巨大无比。”


Free Trail Chinese Lesson

Learn Chinese Face-to-face in shanghai china.
Learn Chinese online with live chinese teacher.
Add Skype ID: chinesetimeschool
MSN:          chinesetime@live.com
Email:        contactus@chinesetime.cn

 
New Post 8/27/2009 12:11 AM
ChineseTime Service Find classmate Demo Course My Course Learn Chinese characters Flashcard Chinese Test
  omfans
2 posts
10th Level Poster


Re: Can China save the Yellow—its Mother River? 
Modified By omfans  on 8/27/2009 12:13:07 AM)

I'm shocked by these article and the picture.

I'm so happy in China, and i know some about Yellow river, but i've never seen pictures like this...

 
Previous Previous
 
Next Next
  Learn Chinese Forum,中国語の勉強フォーラム,对外汉语论坛,Apprendre le chinois,Chinesisch Lernen,Aprender Chino,중국어도 배우고,Imparare Cinese,Aprenda Chinês  Living in China...  Chinese Culture...  Can China save the Yellow—its Mother River?

learn chinese - schedule a free trial lesson
Quick sign up - Learn Chinese and make friends now!
Get FREE access to our learning Chinese materials and tools!
Email: Password:
First Name: Last Name:
Telephone: Country/Area:
Skype: Purpose of study
Submit