h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What an admirable platform. Are you still accepting new members?

Absolutely! Welcome aboard!

Anything to contribute, feel free! Always happy to have new members!

Thanks.

A lot of the humans who enjoy human rights take them for granted, while many more poor humans never get the chance to try them out. It would be nice to do something to make the application of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (A224623) more universal.

My special interest (obsession, some would say) is Tibet. To which end I've been cobbling together h2g2 Firends of Tibet - A2170982.

I heard an excellant point on a call-in radio show:
"If our cricketers are considering not playing in Zimbabwe because of its appalling human rights record, will Brittish athletes not travel to Beijing due to China's appaling human rights record?"

Here is a campaign which aims to spotlight that very question:

http://www.2008-freetibet.org/

A different standard seems to apply when it comes to dealing with human rights in China which makes a mockery of the universality of human rights.

This is somewhat off the topic, but that Three Gorges dam isn't going to last a month when its resevoir is full up, and I'm wondering if it'll even last until then.

Large dams have a history of triggering earthquakes on dead faults- happened out in Oroville CA, around 1970. You can't tell me that the Tibetian plateau doesn't have its fair share of faults. That dam is going to be the ruin of the Chinese government.

The Three Gorges Dam is in Hubei Province. I've also heard concerns about earthquakes caused by the weight of the stupendous amount of water it will hold. Less serious was a news report recently about the vast amouts of rubbish that is collecting in floating islands, miles long, from all the open rubbish dumps that have been flooded by the new dam. According to the report, a virtual navy of small craft has been assembled to drag it away and pile it up again.

China is very gung ho about dams. There are also big dam projects on the Tibetan Plateau. This poses a serious threat to countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh, for example, both in terms of flood control and irrigation needs, as well as to the natural environment of Tibet. A startling statistic is that 40% of humanity depends on rivers which originate on the Tibetan Plateau for their fresh water supply.

Whoops! Well, geologically speaking, I think it is still in the Tibetian Plateau.

It's going to be a problem downstream- the amount of freshwater from the Colorado River since they dammed it has decreased, because those huge lakes the dam makes increases surface area for evaporation. There are going to be some major water shortages, both there, and anywhere else a large dam is being planned.

Interesting. There's always some dire thing or other that no one seems to foresee. Didn't they run into problems in Israel with salt riding to the surface land 'reclaimed using high-tech irrigation? The demand for fresh water worldwide is becoming a huge problem.

If the Chinese gov are being blase about the problems, maybe they should take a look at what happened after the Dambusters Raid, I know the circumstances are different but the effects will still be the same

There was a story some time ago about China planning to use nukes to blast tunnels through mountains to divert rivers for hydro electricity projects.

http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2000/10/23_1.html

Dr. Strangelove, anyone?

I think that character was based on a US scientist- Edward Teller. He helped invent the hydrogen bomb, and spent the rest of his life trying to make himself and the bomb the savior of humanity instead of its destroyer. I really don't know what to make of it myself.