What price civilization?
As we have developed our modern way of life, we have utilized many sources of energy with which to accomplish our progress. These have included wood, coal, oil, nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, wind, solar, hydro, tidal, and ?? (We’ve been really inventive–that’s our nature)
Most of these energy production systems have come with a downside. Our societal downside is that we haven’t been able to see both sides of the resource and judge whether or not the upside is worth the downside. Because we have chosen capitalism as our economic system, we have always given profit a precedence in our decision-making, until the downside asserts itself sufficiently that it either destroys the resource or is deemed necessary to require legislative intervention.
Examples of the former include whaling–we’ve hunted whales nearly to extinction with many species–and that makes them economically unviable; and examples of the latter include the use of DDT–and that required legislative intervention to prevent a mass extinction of species.
One of these examples indicates that we DON’T really understand how to deal with a problem; the other indicates that we DO know how to deal with it, but we can’t or won’t react in time to protect our Spaceship Earth until the situation becomes critical.
We can do better. We have to do better.
One of the areas that we have discovered to have unintended consequences is the damming of rivers. Hydro power should have represented the best in renewable energy that we could envision at the time. And maybe it did for a while. But we came to understand over time that it led to an unintended consequence that could destroy our way of life: [link url=”https://www.currentresults.com/Wildlife/Endangered-Species/Endangered-Fish/hundreds-801101.php” title=”species extinction, such as salmon”].
Dam removals are occurring, so is it celebration time?
Maybe, but to a limited extent. The challenges with dam removal are that powerful political factions have aligned themselves to prevent removal, and that a given removal–fairly–should be accompanied by a strategy to replace the benefit.Removal is easiest when there is no benefit from retaining the dam — something that is more prevalent than one might think — and where the damage from the dam has diminished the local communities’ quality of life.
So, with that background, have a look at [link url=”https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/restoring-damaged-rivers/dam-removal-map/” title=”the successes achieved so far”].
The map is impressive.
But I think it’s important to realize that each of these dam removals met resistance. It was only when the facts were known about environmental damage and economic irrelevance were well understood that the removal could happen.
Take action
So make it happen. Whenever you look into the water and see a salmon, as illustrated above — know that the salmon’s survival depends on you, and your survival depends on the salmon.
Read more:
[relink url=”https://amuedge.com/dams-its-a-matter-of-water-and-much-more/” url2=”https://amuedge.com/what-is-wrong-with-the-nations-dams/” url3=”https://amuedge.com/education/sunday-book-reviews-damn-the-dams/”]
[relink url=”https://amuedge.com/klamath-river-dam-removal-agreement-signed/” url2=”https://amuedge.com/dam-changes-needed-on-snake-river-to-protect-salmon/” url3=”https://amuedge.com/sunday-media-review-the-song-of-the-salmon/”]
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