"Oh, by the way, meet my Frenemy..."

Mama gnome is back.

She's not giving up.

As long as there is one seed left or one sapling standing, Mama gnome will fight for Planet Earth.

And oh, by the way, meet my Frenemy....


What is a Frenemy?

According to dictionary.com a frenemy is:

(noun): a person who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy; a rival with which one maintains friendly relations.

Do you know a frenemy? Do you have a frenemy?

Mama gnome wants to expose a frenemy.

A big one.

It is one of Mother Nature's Frenemies.

And Mama gnome describes Mother Nature's Frenemy as:

(noun): something disguised as eco-friendly, but is actually an eco-enemy.

An eco-frenemy!

And here is one of Mother Nature's Biggest Eco-frenemy:


The Three Gorges Dam

It is a behemoth of a dam that cuts through the Yangtze River in China.

photo by: Christoph Filnkößl

"It is the world's largest electricity-generating plant of any kind."

This is the supposedly eco-friendly part.

For this, about 1.3 million people were displaced from their homes. That doesn't sound friendly to me.

They touted this dam as a step to reducing greenhouse gases.

Yet even before completion, this news report came out.



video from: NTDTV

This article also reports:

"One of the most worrying consequences of the project has been the sharp increase in landslides around the dam. Studies by geologists have shown that the water seeping out of the reservoir and the huge pressure changes are weakening the banks."

The construction of the dam also "flooded several important archaelogical sites" according to an article by Time.

What do you think? Eco-friendly or truly eco-frenemy?

I think I'll check the eco-frenemy column.

Um, did I mention the dam sits on two major faults?

As in possible earthquake major faults.

As quoted from this article by Scientific American:

One of the greatest fears is that the dam may trigger severe earthquakes, because the reservoir sits on two major faults: the Jiuwanxi and the Zigui–Badong. According to Fan, changing the water level strains them. When you alter the fault line's mechanical state," he says, "it can cause fault activity to intensify and induce earthquakes."

Now is this eco-friendly or eco-frenemy? Try eco-frenemy and eco-crazy.

And don't even get me started on its effects on wild life. Too late.

You got me started.

The baiji is/was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze river. What happened to it?
According to this the baiji is now "functionally extinct."

Organizers declared the Baiji "functionally extinct", which would make it the first aquatic mammal species to become extinct since the demise of the Japanese Sea Lion and the Caribbean Monk Seal in the 1950s. It would also be the first recorded extinction of a well-studied cetacean species (it is unclear if some previously extinct varieties were species or subspecies) to be directly attributable to human influence.

They explain that even though there might be one or a few baiji left, it is "not enough to save a functionally extinct species from true extinction."

Another fish in trouble is the Chinese sturgeon. Found only in the Yangtze river, it is classified endangered by IUCN.


video from National Geographic


So far I've counted a gazillion eco-frenemy points. Eco-friendly points? Zilch.


Now don't take my word for it.

Please watch this.


Video from: News Revue


So Mama gnome's just going to call it as it is.

This Dam is not Eco-friendly.

It's not even Eco-Frenemy.

It's truly Eco-Scary.

Rally around Mother Earth.

Rally around her and Go GREEN!


(c) Jenaelha Friendly Gnome's Blog