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Chapter One the Three Gorges Philosophical Reflections on the Importance of a Values-Based Program of Environmental Education, with Special Reference to the Pedagogy of Empathetic Education Dan Zhou Dip Eng (Hohai University, China) M.Eng (University of Newcastle, Australia) A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Education, Faculty of Education and Arts The University of Newcastle February 2014 Statement of Originality The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University’s Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................................................................ III ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................................................... IV FOREWORD ...................................................................................................................................................................... V INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: THE THREE GORGES DAM: GETTING A SENSE OF THE MAGNITUDE AND SCOPE OF THE PROJECT AND ITS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................... 4 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE THREE GORGES PROJECT ......................................................................................................... 5 1.2 LAYOUT AND SCALE OF THREE GORGES PROJECT ..................................................................................................... 14 1.3 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LARGE SCALE DAM BUILDING .............................................................................................. 21 1.4 REASONS FOR A DAM AT TH E THREE GORGES ........................................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER TWO: EXPLORING THE ADVERSE IMPACTS OF THE THREE GORGES DAM PROJECT ...... 31 2.1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................................... 32 2.2 THE CONTROVERSY OF LARGE DAM BUILDING ........................................................................................................ 33 2.3 ENVIRONMENT: HOW IS THE THREE GORGES DAM INTERFERING THE ENVIRONMENT? ............................................ 38 2.4 SOCIAL: ARE THE SOCIAL AND HUMAN IMPACTS OF THE THREE GORGES DAM POSITIVE? ....................................... 49 2.5 ECONOMICS: IS THE THREE GORGES DAM BENEFITING CHINA'S ECONOMY? ............................................................ 66 2.6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................................. 69 CHAPTER THREE: NEW FRONTIERS OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE RIGHT OF NATURE ........................................................................................................................................ 71 3.1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................................... 72 3.2 CONTEMPORARY CHINA’S ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS.................................................................................................. 72 3.3 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS ..................................................................................................... 80 3.4 CHINESE ANCIENT PRIMITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS ........................................................................................... 87 3.5 DESTRUCTION, EXPLOITATION AND SUBJUGATION OF NATURE ................................................................................. 99 3.6 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................... 101 CHAPTER FOUR: EPISTEMOLOGY OF POWER POLITICS, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE PROBLEM OF DISPLACED PEOPLE ................................................................................................................................................... 103 4.1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................................ 104 4.2 THE POLITICAL SENSITIVITY OF RESERVOIR DISPLACEMENT IN CHINA ................................................................... 106 4.3 GENERAL MIGRATION PATTERNS IN CHINA .............................................................................................................. 107 4.4 CONTROL AND OBEDIENCE ― A CHINESE POWER GAME ........................................................................................ 108 4.5 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................... 130 CHAPTER FIVE: TOWARDS A PEDAGOGY OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION GROUNDED IN EMPATHETIC EPISTEMOLOGY ............................................................................................................................... 132 5.1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................................ 133 5.2 RECONCEPTUALIZING THE FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE ..................................................................................... 134 5.3 THE IDEOLOGY OF POWER EPISTEMOLOGY ............................................................................................................. 138 5.4 TRANSFORMATIVE SUBJUGATION AND CONFORMITY .............................................................................................. 144 i 5.5 EMPATHETIC EPISTEMOLOGY AND NEW DIRECTIONS IN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION .......................................... 149 5.6 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................................... 158 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................................................. 160 LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATION ...................................................................................................................... 160 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................................ 270 ii Acknowledgement Few people, if any, ever write a doctoral thesis on their own. Without the help of my Primary Supervisor, Professor Ronald Laura, I would never even have commenced this work. I serendipitously overheard him presenting a luncheon address to his students in a restaurant, where I was working at the time, and I was deeply inspired by his engaging insights and charismatic way of expressing them. Having just completed the Master of Engineering at Newcastle University, I decided to enroll to do the Ph.D. under his supervision, and now that the journey is completed, I want to thank him for letting my mind flourish. He challenged my mind, and taught me to think imaginatively and rigorously. It is meticulous efforts to help me bring this thesis to fruition will never be forgotten. iii Abstract My aim in this thesis is to show that there exists a fundamental ‘moral tension’ between the ostensible goals of environmental education on the one hand and the politicization of China’s ideology of power and obsession with global economic dominance on the other. This moral tension is particularly evident in the case of the Chinese Three Gorges Dam Project (TGDP), where the unresolved collision of these conflicting value presumptions has led to massive ecological degradation on the one hand and issues of social injustice associated with population dislocation on the other. Although considerable engineering planning by the government has gone into the construction of what is claimed to be the most energy productive and largest dam project in the world, its horrific legacy of decimation to the surrounding land and water environments has been catastrophic. Similarly, the forced dislocation of so huge a population of local people (now called ‘reservoir refugees’, at least 1.3 million people based on the official figures) makes clear that the humanitarian ramifications of the TGDP were hopelessly unanticipated, or based upon epistemological presumptions which served to marginalize their moral importance. The Three Gorges Dam (TGD) is politically applauded for several innovations, three of which I wish to draw to the reader’s attention. First, it is hailed as being the largest dam in the world, and second, it is touted as being capable of producing far more ‘safe’ energy than any of the other major dams scattered
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