As a follow up to Rob’s recent good post, Three Gorges Dam, Current Issues With Historical Context, here is a relevant and related front page WSJ article from a few days ago, Dissent Slows China’s Drive for Massive Dam Projects.

The most interesting and important part of the article, in my view:

In other countries, public debates over dam projects have proved to be turning points in how a society treats environmental issues, says Andrew Mertha, a politics professor at Washington University in St. Louis and author of a forthcoming book on Chinese dams. In the U.S., for example, a 1963 government proposal to build dams on the Colorado River, in the area of the Grand Canyon, unleashed an outpouring of opposition. In 1967, the government abandoned the plan. Many scholars now date the decline of large-scale dam-building in the U.S. to that event.

Cal Poly’s Dr. Morris and his history colleagues across the world are dead on. It all starts with knowing history. Can’t see what lies ahead tomorrow and appreciate its import in any country unless you know something about the past.

See also this related WSJ article, China Eco-Watchdog Gets Teeth. A sign that Beijing is becoming more emboldened?

December 31, 2007 addendum: I knew it! Those darn Canadians are to blame for all of this. See today’s WSJ article, Canada’s Aid Seeded China Dam.