

China's campaign to bulldoze mountains to build cities - jaboutboul
http://www.nature.com/news/environment-accelerate-research-on-land-creation-1.15327

======
ChuckMcM
Interesting reading, both the article and the various responses across the
web. It isn't "new" that mountains erode and become the valley floor, one need
only walk along the alluvial fans in Death Valley or any mountain valley to
see this happening. There are also examples of sudden changes where large
sections of a mountain, in the form of a mud slide, slide into the valley
floor below. The claim then that this is 'unnatural' is not supported by the
evidence, the tops of the mountains will sink into the valleys, its only a
question of time and agency.

So when this occurs naturally, if it is slow enough, it allows for top soil to
form, and re-form, as the mountain shifts. If it happens to quickly in nature,
or by humans, it results in a lot of exposed rock. However, if you look at the
Mount St Helens eruption area, you can see that having these sorts of events
(even when they happen naturally) one can reasonably quickly (30 - 50 years)
achieve a nominal level of topsoil and a return to fecundity. If humans are
the agency for the erosion, they can also accelerate the creation of topsoil
by pre-staging components which are normally provided by bacterial colonies.
That results in a much faster return to equilibrium. Some examples of humans
speeding the recovery can be found in the remediation of various strip mining
sites around the world.

Bottom line is that it seems like a lot of work to create flat, and futurely
arable acreage but if they have the resources to do so, knowing in advance
that is what you're doing gives you a tremendous advantage in building your
'soon to be underground' infrastructure before you cover it up with the
material from the mountains on either side.

~~~
pjc50
Do they care about topsoil? I thought this was primarily for construction
purposes.

~~~
ChuckMcM
At some level they must, unless its one giant asphalt plain, part of the
original article mentioned that creating more arable land was part of the goal
and that too would require topsoil for non-hydroponic type operations.

------
bane
Isn't this right out of Snow Crash?

 _Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road, per usual, only way
to avoid it is to cut through The Mews at Windsor Heights.

TMAWHs all have the same layout. When creating a new Burbclave, TMAWH
Development Corporation will chop down any mountain ranges and divert the
course of any mighty rivers that threaten to interrupt this street plan --
ergonomically designed to encourage driving safety. A Deliverator can go into
a Mews at Windsor Heights anywhere from Fairbanks to Yaroslavl to the Shenzhen
special economic zone and find his way around.

But once you've delivered a pie to every single house in a TMAWH a few times,
you get to know its little secrets. The Deliverator is such a man. He knows
that in a standard TMAWH there is only one yard - one yard - that prevents you
from driving straight in one entrance, across the Burbclave, and out the
other. If you are squeamish about driving on grass, it might take you ten
minutes to meander through TMAWH. But if you have the balls to lay tracks
across that one yard, you have a straight shot through the center._

------
mark_l_watson
I was reading James Rickard's new book "The Death of Money" (he also wrote
"Currency Wars") today and he goes into a lot of detail on China's problems
(investing in infrastructure that may not be used, not pushing consumer
spending, etc.) - a recommended read.

I have been taking a class on Globalization. My gut instinct is both China and
the USA face extreme problems, and things are just holding together in both
countries.

------
chriskanan
China already has numerous "ghost cities" that nobody lives in, so this
project just seems like an especially environmentally dangerous jobs program:
[http://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-worlds-largest-ghost-
city-...](http://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-worlds-largest-ghost-city-ordos-
china-1541512511) [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-21/chinas-ghost-
cities...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-21/chinas-ghost-cities-are-
multiplying)

~~~
tormeh
China is a big place. Just because there's no demand for housing in one part
of China does not mean that there is no demand for housing in all of China.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
And do tell me where housing is actually hot right now? Every single second+
tier city I've visited this year has had large amounts of new empty housing,
the entire country outside of a few first tiers has long entered bubble
territory.

------
petercoolz
While I agree with the recommendations of the article, I wish it would cover
some of the history of US geo-engineering too.

I wonder what concerns were raised when they filled in Back Bay in Boston, or
created artificial islands like Balboa Island in Newport Beach.

~~~
angersock
In the beginning God made the Earth, and the Corps of Engineers has been
tampering with it ever since.

------
hyperion2010
This has so many unforeseen consequences. Without even going into the
environmental impact, it sounds like they have invested nothing in soil
engineering. The authors stress the danger of subsidence, but still it is
terrifying to think that people are actually going to build buildings on top
of this stuff. Imagine a future where no one remembers that this large patch
of land was actually created out of nothing and has not been tested by science
(much less time) against erosion and seismic activity how many lives could be
lost?

------
jmpe
"Our lives are spent trying to pixellate a fractal planet."

~A. King in Society

~~~
Lambdanaut
That's beautiful and so spot on.

I have found that one key to happiness is to drop judgement and just observe
the nature of the world. Appreciate it for what it is, not what you can do to
it.

------
jquery
Short-sighted thinking. Environmental and structural concerns aside, what
about the irrevocable destruction of natural beauty? When I visited China, its
massive rolling hills, peppered with rural farms, were one of the most
beautiful natural vistas I'd ever seen.

------
homerowilson
Hey! We flatten mountains in West Virginia too!

------
thinkerer
In a country where everything is measured by GDP growth, it isnt surprising.

Mountains actually do affect climate as well...couple with deforestation and
making huge dams...

------
gscott
China taking on these large projects that may or may not work out in the
future is a good thing for the United States. Otherwise they would be
investing all of that into the military and have taken over every country
around them already. Let them tear down mountains instead of something else.
Sounds good to me. In a million years the terrain will look totally different
and what they are doing now may be unrecognizable.

~~~
briandh
The PRC is not interested in taking over "every country around them"; they are
interested in Taiwan and a handful of island territories.

~~~
gscott
They are cutting off counties access to ocean that is within the "exclusive
economic zone" of those countries. It's going to come down to filling the
ocean with Chinese warships & submarines so that these countries cannot use
the sea. It isn't quite taking them over you're right. It's more like making
all of the countries that border the South and East China Sea prisoners to the
land. If Cuba put an oil rig 150 miles offshore of Florida it would be an act
of war.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/china-tearing-
down-...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/china-tearing-down-
mountains-build-cities-180951678/), which points to this.

