Thanks Dee! My pleasure. Cadillac Desert is great eh! I love the southwest. Have spent a lot of time down there doing fieldwork in the Sonoran Desert when I lived in the States. Amazing place. That would've been an amazing time to visit the 3 Gorges!
Also love your home country. My God what a stunning place. I worked the 2000 Games in Sydney (was in sports TV business for many years). Spent a month from end to end lounging in Russell up north in the Bay of Islands, saw the All-Blacks play in Christchurch, trekked the Fjords, fly-fished at the Huka Lodge, jet-boated the Shotover in Queensland. What a country. I almost moved there. Alas I haven’t been back since. Much to see in this World. Have always loved Kiwis—we had several working as ski instructors when I was living in Vail, CO. That’s how I found out about all the cool places in NZ.
Thanks for subscribing! It’s not a bad place is it! So is Colorado though. What an interesting background you’ve had by the sounds of things. We’ve got some of the best fly fishing in the country and hour or so away from us in Christchurch. Pretty lucky.
It's sad to see so many of our waterways in New Zealand being modified, whether through hydro dams, farming practises and or flood protection projects. Does the general public or even govt agencies understand the ecological effects that hydro electricity has on our waterways? Your article was interesting in that it linked back to nature based solutions for so many of the issues our natural environment is facing but how do the scientists get this message to the govt agencies that should be hearing it? Also, as you say there are other alternatives to clean energy apart from hydro. I don't think solar energy is used enough. I look at all the new houses being built in our area and wouldn't it be great if they all had solar panels on their roofs. I realise there is an initial start up cost with solar but I guess we should all be thinking long term to have cleaner energy. Thinking long term is a tricky one for govts though unfortunately.
It is, Kim! Yes, the problem is the 3-year cycles our governments run on. Hard to get long-term thinking across the board. I think part of it is a communication issue, but mostly it's just an incentives issue. They're made aware of the costs, but they aren't as high priority as the gains they're interested in a lot of the time. We just need to get the right people around the table.
It's interesting that climate change is a threat to these ecosystems, but so are hydroelectricity dams that would help us lower carbon output and therefore help with climate change.
This gets back to a larger vague question I posed to you a while ago about the tradeoffs between building and ecological assessments. We're already not shifting to clean energy fast enough, so putting more constraints on clean energy projects feels bad. On the other hand, one important thing I've learned from you is the importance of natural solutions for (among other things) fighting climate change.
It's kind of frustrating from my perspective -- how do we do this clean energy transition "right"?
Thanks Tommy. Yes, everything is a tradeoff, particularly with regard to environmental decisions. Unfortunately, hydro is a fantastic source of energy, but it is a *major* threat to biodiversity worldwide. The ecological costs are huge. I could go on for hours about this. So my take on hydro is that it is very, very rarely a good idea when you consider the costs to ecosystems. And also, I'd argue that river flow regimes are so uncertain now given the uncertainties around climate forecasts over the next 100 years, that new hydro projects are becoming increasingly untenable from that perspective alone.
Of course, there's no one right answer, but there are lots of good clean energy options available, as you know (solar in particular, wind, geothermal). None of these are completely impact-free either, but I'd argue their impacts are rarely more than hydro dams. Things like solar can certainly roll out very quickly with the right policies. Germany is a good example of that, historically at least.
That's really informative, thanks! I notice nuclear didn't make your list of good options (and speaking of Germany, I saw a lot of criticism over their decision to close a bunch of their nuclear plants), do you have any insight on where it fits in if at all?
No worries! Good spotting. I try to defer any opinion on nuclear as I don't have a strong stance either way. I'm not anti-nuclear on principle, but I don't lean the other way either. I do think it should be in the mix of discussions. Small Modular Reactors are increasingly being rolled out but their costs has raised concerns about scalability. Nuclear is a very tricky subject given the potential risk. Safety is much less of an issue these days at least, but still lingers large to me. I like to defer to places like Project Drawdown on such issues as it's certainly not in my area of expertise and I don't feel confident enough in it to have a strong opinion: https://drawdown.org/solutions/nuclear-power.
Thanks, that's a good resource! And thanks for the patience with my questions, I really appreciate your thoughts since this is an important topic I have so little expertise in
Much to love here. I visited 3 Gorges back in ‘99 when it was just half full and witnessed the displacement of villages and millions of people.
Also loved Cadillac Desert—what a prescient book.
Thank for for this essay!
Thanks Dee! My pleasure. Cadillac Desert is great eh! I love the southwest. Have spent a lot of time down there doing fieldwork in the Sonoran Desert when I lived in the States. Amazing place. That would've been an amazing time to visit the 3 Gorges!
Also love your home country. My God what a stunning place. I worked the 2000 Games in Sydney (was in sports TV business for many years). Spent a month from end to end lounging in Russell up north in the Bay of Islands, saw the All-Blacks play in Christchurch, trekked the Fjords, fly-fished at the Huka Lodge, jet-boated the Shotover in Queensland. What a country. I almost moved there. Alas I haven’t been back since. Much to see in this World. Have always loved Kiwis—we had several working as ski instructors when I was living in Vail, CO. That’s how I found out about all the cool places in NZ.
Take care! Just subscribed.
Thanks for subscribing! It’s not a bad place is it! So is Colorado though. What an interesting background you’ve had by the sounds of things. We’ve got some of the best fly fishing in the country and hour or so away from us in Christchurch. Pretty lucky.
It's sad to see so many of our waterways in New Zealand being modified, whether through hydro dams, farming practises and or flood protection projects. Does the general public or even govt agencies understand the ecological effects that hydro electricity has on our waterways? Your article was interesting in that it linked back to nature based solutions for so many of the issues our natural environment is facing but how do the scientists get this message to the govt agencies that should be hearing it? Also, as you say there are other alternatives to clean energy apart from hydro. I don't think solar energy is used enough. I look at all the new houses being built in our area and wouldn't it be great if they all had solar panels on their roofs. I realise there is an initial start up cost with solar but I guess we should all be thinking long term to have cleaner energy. Thinking long term is a tricky one for govts though unfortunately.
It is, Kim! Yes, the problem is the 3-year cycles our governments run on. Hard to get long-term thinking across the board. I think part of it is a communication issue, but mostly it's just an incentives issue. They're made aware of the costs, but they aren't as high priority as the gains they're interested in a lot of the time. We just need to get the right people around the table.
It's interesting that climate change is a threat to these ecosystems, but so are hydroelectricity dams that would help us lower carbon output and therefore help with climate change.
This gets back to a larger vague question I posed to you a while ago about the tradeoffs between building and ecological assessments. We're already not shifting to clean energy fast enough, so putting more constraints on clean energy projects feels bad. On the other hand, one important thing I've learned from you is the importance of natural solutions for (among other things) fighting climate change.
It's kind of frustrating from my perspective -- how do we do this clean energy transition "right"?
Thanks Tommy. Yes, everything is a tradeoff, particularly with regard to environmental decisions. Unfortunately, hydro is a fantastic source of energy, but it is a *major* threat to biodiversity worldwide. The ecological costs are huge. I could go on for hours about this. So my take on hydro is that it is very, very rarely a good idea when you consider the costs to ecosystems. And also, I'd argue that river flow regimes are so uncertain now given the uncertainties around climate forecasts over the next 100 years, that new hydro projects are becoming increasingly untenable from that perspective alone.
Of course, there's no one right answer, but there are lots of good clean energy options available, as you know (solar in particular, wind, geothermal). None of these are completely impact-free either, but I'd argue their impacts are rarely more than hydro dams. Things like solar can certainly roll out very quickly with the right policies. Germany is a good example of that, historically at least.
That's really informative, thanks! I notice nuclear didn't make your list of good options (and speaking of Germany, I saw a lot of criticism over their decision to close a bunch of their nuclear plants), do you have any insight on where it fits in if at all?
No worries! Good spotting. I try to defer any opinion on nuclear as I don't have a strong stance either way. I'm not anti-nuclear on principle, but I don't lean the other way either. I do think it should be in the mix of discussions. Small Modular Reactors are increasingly being rolled out but their costs has raised concerns about scalability. Nuclear is a very tricky subject given the potential risk. Safety is much less of an issue these days at least, but still lingers large to me. I like to defer to places like Project Drawdown on such issues as it's certainly not in my area of expertise and I don't feel confident enough in it to have a strong opinion: https://drawdown.org/solutions/nuclear-power.
Thanks, that's a good resource! And thanks for the patience with my questions, I really appreciate your thoughts since this is an important topic I have so little expertise in
Not at all -- more than happy to receive your questions! Cheers Tommy.