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    Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia
    Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia
    Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia
    Ebook343 pages3 hours

    Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia

    By Michael Buckley

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    About this ebook

    Tibetans have experienced waves of genocide since the 1950s. Now they are facing ecocide. The Himalayan snowcaps are in meltdown mode, due to climate change—accelerated by a rain of black soot from massive burning of coal and other fuels in both China and India. The mighty rivers of Tibet are being dammed by Chinese engineering consortiums to feed the mainland's thirst for power, and the land is being relentlessly mined in search of minerals to feed China's industrial complex. On the drawing board are plans for a massive engineering project to divert water from Eastern Tibet to water-starved Northern China. Ruthless Chinese repression leaves Tibetans powerless to stop the reckless destruction of their sacred land, but they are not the only victims of this campaign: the nations downstream from Tibet rely heavily on rivers sourced in Tibet for water supply, and for rich silt used in agriculture. This destruction of the region's environment has been happening with little scrutiny until now. In Meltdown in Tibet, Michael Buckley turns the spotlight on the darkest side of China's emergence as a global super power.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateNov 11, 2014
    ISBN9781137474728
    Meltdown in Tibet: China's Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia
    Author

    Michael Buckley

    A nomad at heart, Michael Buckley has travelled widely in the Himalayas, Central Asia, and South Asia. He is author of a number of books to these regions, including: --Eccentric Explorers: wild and wacky adventurers of the Tibetan plateau --Travels in the Tibetan World: detailing personal voyages to many Tibetan enclaves --Shangri-La: a Travel Guide to the Himalayan Dream --Tibet: the Bradt Travel Guide Books about environment crisis in Tibet: --Meltdown in Tibet (Palgrave-Macmillan, New York, 2014) is about serious environmental issues on the Tibetan Plateau. Also available as ebook version. --Tibet, Disrupted is a companion digital photobook, updated and revised, published 2020. This is available for download via Amazon Kindle, Apple Books or the iTunes Store. The photo-based book is over 430 pages long and focuses on visual presentation with minimal text. The book can be hooked up from iPad to a big-screen TV or larger projector to give Keynote presentations. --This Fragile Planet His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Environment Photobook with quotations from His Holiness, compiled and edited by Michael Buckley published on Apple Books platform, Dec 2019. Published in larger-format print version by Sumeru Books, September 2021 --The Snow Leopard's New Friend Tibetan Animal Tales. A children's book for ages 8+ featuring 10 tales about the amazing animals of Tibet. The back of the book features profiles of the real animals as well as section on Activities. Published on Amazon Kindle platform and Apple Books platform in December 2019. Published in print version by Sumeru Books, September 2021. Print version translated into Tibetan, published in India by the LTWA, September 2021. As well as being a writer, Buckley is a passionate photographer, documentary filmmaker and environmental explorer. He is filmmaker for three short documentaries about major environmental issues in Tibet that go under-reported--or not reported at all. To find out more, go to www.WildYakFilms.com/. Short versions of these films can be viewed on Vimeo.com (just search the documentary title): --Meltdown in Tibet == about dams and water problems on the Tibetan plateau --From Nomad to Nobody == about the plight of the vanishing nomads of Tibet --Plundering Tibet == about the devastating impact of mining in Tibet --Mekong Apocalypse == about the devastating impact of...

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    • 1/5
      it's hard to tell if this work is about the false abuse of Tibet by China or about climate change. in both situations, this work is completely wrong and is based on made up situations lacking real facts. I lived and worked in Tibet and have traveled widely across the regon and know it well. Seems like the author has never been there. I want facts. Not wild speculation.

    Book preview

    Meltdown in Tibet - Michael Buckley

    PART ONE

    LISTENING TO GLACIERS

    This center of heaven

    This core of the earth

    This heart of the world

    Fenced round by snow

    The headland of all rivers

    Where the mountains are high

    And the land is pure

    —Tibetan poem, written about 1,200 years ago*

    * Source: Translation from text of the Tibetan Chronicle, written on the back of Chinese Buddhist scrolls. The scrolls were part of a large hidden library discovered in 1908 at the Dunhuang caves in Gansu by Western scholars Auriel Stein and Paul Pelliot. The Tibetan Chronicle was probably compiled in the period AD 800 to 840, and represents the earliest surviving record of Tibetan literature. It is kept as part of the Pelliot Collection at the National Library of France, in Paris.

    CHAPTER ONE

    Rafting the Drigung

    What on Earth Are China’s Engineers Getting Up To?

    There are things you take for granted in Tibet: magnificent snowcaps, powerful gushing rivers, hearty nomads, yaks grazing the grasslands under vast open skies. I never imagined I would have to write the following lines: Tibetans have experienced waves of genocide since the 1950s. Now they are facing ecocide—the reckless destruction of their fragile high-altitude environment.

    The Himalayan snowcaps are in meltdown mode due to climate change—accelerated by a rain of black soot from massive burning of coal and other fossil fuels in both China and India. The mighty rivers of Tibet are being dammed by Chinese engineering consortiums to feed the mainland’s relentless quest for power. There are plans to divert water from some major rivers sourced in Tibet to feed China’s desperate thirst for clean water. The grasslands of Tibet are being usurped by desert—partly due to climate change, but mostly due to the shortsighted Chinese policy of forcibly removing Tibetan nomads from the grasslands and settling them in concrete hovels. Even yaks—the iconic creatures of Tibet—are vanishing from central Tibet: the yaks are sent to slaughterhouses when nomads are settled. There is high demand for yak meat among wealthy Chinese.

    When I first reached Tibet in 1985, little of this was apparent—at least, not at the sites where foreign big-noses were allowed to go and sniff around. This has all come to pass in a few short decades, unfolding right before my eyes. After Tibet opened up to individual travelers, I entered overland with an assignment to write a guidebook. It was published in 1986 by Lonely Planet—the first-ever English guidebook to modern Tibet. In the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s, I traveled all over the Tibetan world—and central Tibet itself—in the course of gathering research material, later for the British publisher Bradt Travel Guides.

    In 2005, I traveled to Tibet not only to update the Bradt guidebook, but also to work on a story about the new railway arriving in Lhasa and its potential impact on Tibetans. I did some firsthand railway research, taking pictures of the new line and its bridges and tunnels. But I fell into a much bigger story—a black hole of a story—about dam building in Tibet. In fact, I stumbled into a story about impending disaster for Tibet and beyond.

    So let me be your guide on a very different journey in Meltdown in Tibet, as we take in the glaciers, moraines, grasslands, sacred mountains, and lakes of Tibet—and roll on past railway tracks, dams, and mining sites. Meltdown in Tibet is an alternative guide—a guide to disaster, a personal take on environmental issues in Tibet based on my observations on the ground and on a mountain of research.

    This book is about looming water crisis in Asia—and about looming environmental chaos in Tibet, India, and Asia. I believe looming will almost certainly translate to real because absolutely nothing is being done to stop China’s wholesale destruction of the rivers, forests, mountains, and grasslands of Tibet.

    China’s official response to environmental degradation in Tibet repeatedly blames everything on climate change (which, it should be pointed out, is largely sparked by humans). For Tibetans, this is not about climate change, it’s about the climate of fear that prevails—ruthless Chinese repression that renders Tibetans powerless to do anything to stop the reckless destruction of their sacred land. At the time of this writing, there have been more than 130 self-immolations by Tibetans since 2009—with over 100 deaths resulting. Tibetans have set themselves on fire in the ultimate act of desperation to protest what is happening to their land and their culture.

    * * *

    AUGUST 2005: MY INTRODUCTION TO THE TREMENDOUS POWER OF THE RIVERS of Tibet comes via a rafting ride on the Drigung River, a few hours’ drive from Lhasa. This is a baptism fueled by pure adrenaline, a baptism that raises lots of questions—and gets me going on research.

    Feeling rather ridiculous—decked out in a flashy wetsuit, rubber booties, lifejacket, and helmet—I waddle over to the big blue raft. All the gear is in the interests of warmth and waterproofing—and safety. Georgia gives us a briefing on what to do if ejected from the craft (don’t try and tie a rescue rope around your neck). Georgia, from Australia, is conducting safety rescue courses for the Tibetan rafting trainees. She’s our safety kayaker on this day trip, scouting rapids ahead and trolling for any body that happens to be floating

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