Reply #13: Because it's the equivalent [View All]

[tpsbmam]

of Falwell, Robertson, Hagee, Parsley etc blaming 9/11, Katrina and a whole host of other disasters on the ACLU, gays, Democrats, a permissive society, etc. There may be those who agree with her, but IMO it was a damn stupid thing to say. Would you still think it was OK if one of the above "ministers" said the same thing?

And what she said was different than what the article you quote was talking about. The way I heard what she sad was very close to the kinds of things that Falwell et al have said -- she said it was karma due to how they treat Tibetans. That is not really what is represented in the article. Here are the first 2 paragraphs of the article:

Mao Tse-tung famously declared "man must conquer nature," and his political heirs have followed his dictum zealously by building dams and other gigantic projects that have altered the landscape of China.

But this month's deadly earthquake may tilt the balance of public opinion in favor of a more cautious and environmentally conscious approach to such development.

And more to the point:

"Chinese ancient culture has a philosophy of a cohesive connection between people and nature. What we did to that river shows no respect for nature, and now nature is taking its revenge," said Ai Nanshan, a professor of environmental sciences at Sichuan University in Chengdu.

It is not pure superstition. Geologists have long warned of the danger of building dams in earthquake-prone locations. Not only can the structures collapse, but some temblors -- most famously one in 1967 in Koyna, India -- also are believed to have been triggered by the weight of a dam's reservoir.

"We don't want to appear to benefit from human catastrophe by pushing an agenda, but we are making information about earthquakes and dams available," said Peter Bradford, an official with International Rivers Network, a Berkeley environmental group. Bradford said that three people he met on a visit to Beijing this week separately predicted that the Chinese government would reconsider its aggressive dam-building program.