All things tibet
Blog 1 of 2 on Tibet and the global biodiversity crisis རུ་སྐོར། Nature needs rescuing from the most rapacious of predators: us. Nature, wildlife, biodiversity, whatever the name, is as much in crisis as the global climate. Actually, the planetary climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis -the imminent threat of mass extinctions- are one and […]
Blog 2 of 2 on Tibet and the global biodiversity crisis WHIPPING To keep pace with China’s proliferating agendas, ongoing removal of nomads from their pastures is now mandated not only by national park zoning regulations, but also in the name of poverty alleviation. Several policy decrees issued by party-state central repeat the command to […]
IATS SEMINAR PRAGUE 2022 GABRIEL LAFITTE https://rukor.org Expanded version of presentation in Prague 4 July 2022, in a panel on Pastoral culture in the Tibeto-Himalayan region: A study across space and time based on field and literature surveys ANTHROPOCENE ACCELERATION OF TIBETAN LIVELIHOODS ABSTRACT: Compulsory modernity with Chinese characteristics now inflects almost all aspects […]
TIBET AIRLINES FAILS The crash and burn of a Tibet Airlines Airbus fortunately happened on the Chongqing runway, as the plane was about to take off for Nyingtri (Linzhi in Chinese), full of wealthy Han Chinese hoping for a relaxing hill station break from the oppressive summer heat and humidity that afflicts the twinned cities […]
ON THE ROAD, IN YOUR DREAMS Film maker Khyentse Norbu aka Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, has inspired and shaped a 2021 movie, shot inside Tibet, that vividly shows how an advanced tantric practice -dream yoga- frees the mind of its literalism, and habitual addiction to facticity. The title alone says a lot: Bipolar. That immediately […]
A NEW ERA XI JINPING CANNOT IMAGINE A blog on how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine changes the whole world, Tibet included When Donald Trump blamed China for everything ailing the US, big business carried on as usual, sourcing everything from China, building factories in China, doing all they could to win over China’s new rich […]
NEO PROPAGANDA #3 in a series of blogs on what to expect in Tibet in 2022 In 2022 Chinese Communist Party propaganda is no longer what we expect. Habitually, we assume China’s propaganda to be like the bold posters of the 1950s celebrating heroic model workers, glorifying hydro dams and smoking factory chimney stacks. Or […]
JADED Jade, solar, dams, expressways, power grids jostle for space at the pass Second topic in a series predicting Tibet in 2022 Blog 1/3 on Tibet becoming a pumped hydro battery In 2022 construction begins on Qinghai Golmud Nanshankou Pumped-storage power station to absorb solar array oversupply, according to China’s National Energy Administration. 青海格尔木南山口抽蓄电站 . […]
……….AND INTO THE PASS Blog 2/3 on Tibet becoming a pumped hydro battery Let’s begin again. There’s a lot to unpack. What started as a straightforward proposition to enhance China’s big investments in solar power with an upriver battery dam, turns out to have many pushes and pulls: climate change, glacial peaks, a jade […]
DOWN RIVER INTO A MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPE 3/3 on Tibet becoming a pumped hydro battery We follow the Gormo/Golmud river down. Having captured both of the rivers upstream and cut through the mountains, it descends below the pass into an altogether different world of gravel and sand, relentless winds, oil and gas wells […]