Damming the Peace

Damming the Peace
Author: Wendy Holm
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2018-04-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1459413164

Since the 1970s, the Site C Dam in northeastern British Columbia's Peace River Valley has been touted by B.C. Hydro and successive governments as necessary to meet the province's increasing energy needs. With its enormous $10 billion price tag, the dam would be the largest public works project in BC history. It would be the third dam on the Peace River, and destroy traditional unceded territory belonging to Treaty 8 First Nations. Following the last provincial election, the newly appointed NDP government called for a review of the project, but work on the dam continues. This comes after protests by aboriginal groups and landowners, several lawsuits against the government, and federal government intervention to let the dam go ahead. More recently, there has been a call from a United Nations panel to review how the dam will affect Indigenous land. This book presents the independent voices of citizen experts describing every important impact of the dam, including: Sustainable energy expert Guy Dauncey on future energy demand, and whether there is likely to be a need for the dam's electricity An interview with aboriginal activist Helen Knott on the dam's assault on traditional lands and culture, in particular Indigenous women Agrologist Wendy Holm on the farm land impact — prime horticulture land important to food security and nutrition Family physician Warren Bell on the effect that loss of traditional way of life and connection to the land has had on the health of aboriginal people Wildlife biologist Brian Churchill with forty years' experience of studying its land and wildlife Former environmental minister Joan Sawicki on government cover-ups and smoking guns Energy industry watchdog Andrew Nikiforuk on the links between dams, fracking and earthquakes Award-winning broadcaster Rafe Mair on how party politics corrupts political leadership, and the role of activism and civil disobedience in shaping government decision-making David Schindler, one of the world's foremost water ecologists, explains the role dams like Site C will play in Canada's climate change strategy Joyce Nelson connects the dots between the Site C dam and continental water sharing plans

Breaching the Peace

Breaching the Peace
Author: Sarah Cox
Publisher: On Point Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2018-05-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0774890282

From award-winning journalist Sarah Cox comes the inspiring and astonishing story of the farmers and First Nations who stood up against the most expensive megaproject in BC history and the government-sanctioned bullying that propelled it forward. In 2010, the BC government announced its plan to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River. Although Site C would flood land of great significance to First Nations and some of Canada’s best farmland, BC Hydro, Premier Gordon Campbell, and his successor, Christy Clark, insisted it was necessary to generate jobs and clean energy. In this powerful work, Cox reveals the true costs and hidden dangers of the project, as told to her by the local farmers, ranchers, and First Nations leaders who tried to stop the dam and the wholesale destruction of their valley in courts of law and the court of public opinion. This modern-day David-and-Goliath story, told in frank and moving prose, stands as a much-needed cautionary tale during an era when concerns about global warming have helped justify a renaissance of environmentally irresponsible hydro megaprojects around the world.

Water, Peace, and War

Water, Peace, and War
Author: Brahma Chellaney
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2015-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442249285

Now in an updated edition, this pioneering and authoritative study considers the profound impact of the growing global water crunch on international peace and security as well as possible ways to mitigate the crisis. Although water is essential to sustaining life and livelihoods, geostrategist Brahma Chellaney argues that it remains the world’s most underappreciated and undervalued resource. One sobering fact is that the retail price of bottled water is already higher than the international spot price of crude oil. But unlike oil, water has no substitute, raising the specter of water becoming the next flashpoint for conflict. Water war as a concept may not mesh with the conventional construct of warfare, especially for those who plan with tanks, combat planes, and attack submarines as weapons. Yet armies don’t necessarily have to march to battle to seize or defend water resources. Water wars—in a political, diplomatic, or economic sense—are already being waged between riparian neighbors in many parts of the world, fueling cycles of bitter recrimination, exacerbating water challenges, and fostering mistrust that impedes broader regional cooperation and integration. The danger is that these water wars could escalate to armed conflict or further limit already stretched food and energy production. Writing in a direct, nontechnical, and engaging style, Brahma Chellaney draws on a wide range of research from scientific and policy fields to examine the different global linkages between water and peace. Offering a holistic picture and integrated solutions, his book has become the recognized authority on the most precious natural resource of this century and how we can secure humankind’s water future.

Looking for the Enemy

Looking for the Enemy
Author: Bette Dam
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2021-12-15
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9354892868

For twenty years, the Taliban was the number one enemy of Western forces in Afghanistan. But it was an enemy that they knew little about, and about whose founder and leader, Mullah Omar, they knew even less. Armed with only a fuzzy black-and-white photo of the man, investigative journalist Bette Dam decided to track down the reclusive Taliban chief a decade back. But in the course of what had seemed an almost impossible job, she got to know the Taliban inside out, realized how dangerously misinformed the global forces fighting it were, and made a startling discovery about the elusive Omar's whereabouts. The outcome of a five-year-long pursuit, Looking for the Enemy is a woman journalist's epic story that takes the reader deep into the dangerous mountains and war-ravaged valleys of Afghanistan as it throws up several unknowns about an organization that is now once again at the helm in one of the world's most fragile states.

The Dam

The Dam
Author: David Almond
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1536221023

A haunting, stunningly illustrated story of loss, hope, and the power of music from multi-award winners David Almond and Levi Pinfold. Kielder Water is a wild and beautiful place, rich in folk music and legend. Years ago, before a great dam was built to fill the valley with water, there were farms and homesteads in that valley and musicians who livened their rooms with song. After the village was abandoned and before the waters rushed in, a father and daughter returned there. The girl began to play her fiddle, bringing her tune to one empty house after another — for this was the last time that music would be heard in that place. With exquisite artwork by Levi Pinfold, David Almond’s lyrical narrative — inspired by a true tale — pays homage to his friends Mike and Kathryn Tickell and all the musicians of Northumberland, to show that music is ancient and unstoppable, and that dams and lakes cannot overwhelm it.

Damming the Peace

Damming the Peace
Author: Wendy Holm
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2018-04-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1459413172

Since the 1970s, the Site C Dam in northeastern British Columbia's Peace River Valley has been touted by B.C. Hydro and successive governments as necessary to meet the province's increasing energy needs. With its enormous $10 billion price tag, the dam would be the largest public works project in BC history. It would be the third dam on the Peace River, and destroy traditional unceded territory belonging to Treaty 8 First Nations. Following the last provincial election, the newly appointed NDP government called for a review of the project, but work on the dam continues. This comes after protests by aboriginal groups and landowners, several lawsuits against the government, and federal government intervention to let the dam go ahead. More recently, there has been a call from a United Nations panel to review how the dam will affect Indigenous land. This book presents the independent voices of citizen experts describing every important impact of the dam, including: Sustainable energy expert Guy Dauncey on future energy demand, and whether there is likely to be a need for the dam's electricity An interview with aboriginal activist Helen Knott on the dam's assault on traditional lands and culture, in particular Indigenous women Agrologist Wendy Holm on the farm land impact — prime horticulture land important to food security and nutrition Family physician Warren Bell on the effect that loss of traditional way of life and connection to the land has had on the health of aboriginal people Wildlife biologist Brian Churchill with forty years' experience of studying its land and wildlife Former environmental minister Joan Sawicki on government cover-ups and smoking guns Energy industry watchdog Andrew Nikiforuk on the links between dams, fracking and earthquakes Award-winning broadcaster Rafe Mair on how party politics corrupts political leadership, and the role of activism and civil disobedience in shaping government decision-making David Schindler, one of the world's foremost water ecologists, explains the role dams like Site C will play in Canada's climate change strategy Joyce Nelson connects the dots between the Site C dam and continental water sharing plans

The Blue Peace

The Blue Peace
Author: Sundeep Waslekar
Publisher:
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2011
Genre: Water conservation
ISBN: 9788188262144

Dams and Disease

Dams and Disease
Author: William Jobin
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2003-09-02
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0203477189

A guide to help planners and engineers to the improvment of future water projects. The past century of global experience on water projects is presented as the basis for creating new approaches. First-hand analyses, including 35 case studies from 25 countries, portray the influence of politicians, biologists, engineers, computer models and physicians on the spectacular successes and failures of the builders of canals and dams. By drawing on this experience, the author outlines methods for assessing, predicting and preventing major water-associated diseases around large dams, canals and irrigation systems.

Concrete Revolution

Concrete Revolution
Author: Christopher Sneddon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2015-09-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 022628445X

Water may seem innocuous, but as a universal necessity, it inevitably intersects with politics when it comes to acquisition, control, and associated technologies. While we know a great deal about the socioecological costs and benefits of modern dams, we know far less about their political origins and ramifications. In Concrete Revolution, Christopher Sneddon offers a corrective: a compelling historical account of the US Bureau of Reclamation’s contributions to dam technology, Cold War politics, and the social and environmental adversity perpetuated by the US government in its pursuit of economic growth and geopolitical power. Founded in 1902, the Bureau became enmeshed in the US State Department’s push for geopolitical power following World War II, a response to the Soviet Union’s increasing global sway. By offering technical and water resource management advice to the world’s underdeveloped regions, the Bureau found that it could not only provide them with economic assistance and the United States with investment opportunities, but also forge alliances and shore up a country’s global standing in the face of burgeoning communist influence. Drawing on a number of international case studies—from the Bureau’s early forays into overseas development and the launch of its Foreign Activities Office in 1950 to the Blue Nile investigation in Ethiopia—Concrete Revolution offers insights into this historic damming boom, with vital implications for the present. If, Sneddon argues, we can understand dams as both technical and political objects rather than instruments of impartial science, we can better participate in current debates about large dams and river basin planning.

Dam Internationalism

Dam Internationalism
Author: Vincent Lagendijk
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2024-07-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1350367907

During the 20th century dam-building became a truly global endeavour. Built around the world, they generated networks of actors, institutions and companies embedded in globally circulating technological knowledge and discourses of modernization and development. This volume takes a global approach to the history of dams, exploring the complex power relations and internationalist entanglements that shaped them. Shedding new light on the globalization of technology and international power struggles that defined the 20th century, Dam Internationalism shows that dams are artefacts in their own right and have created new and revisionist histories that urge us to rethink classic narratives. From international cooperation, to the importance of the Cold War and the capitalist/socialist divide, the success of western technology, the prominence of the United States, the alleged impotence of people affected by dams, and the uniformity of infrastructure. Each chapter showcases a different case study from Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America to show that dams enabled marginalized countries and actors to articulate themselves and pursue their own political and socio-economic goals in a century dominated by the Global North.