The article makes a few useful points, but as has been noted elsewhere the dam building boom in China has nothing to do with the environment. The developers and party officials who put dam proposals together don't give a rat's rear end about the environment. In fact it seems to be some sort of racket, combined with a drive for prestige. Every party official of a certain level has to be involved in a dam project, just as every province has to have a huge steel making plant and a major conference centre. Economic rationalism does not enter into it. Not incidentally, the construction of these things provides lots of opportunities for lower level officials to line their pockets. An additional Cherry on top of all this is that the projects can generate environmental credits for sale to the European ETS - credits which have nothing to do with their environmental worth.
Now that the economy is faltering the big-project disease afflicting China, of which a rash of dams are a symptom, is likely to have lots of major effects. Instead of a cleaner environment (pollution is still terrible despite all these dams) China is likely to have a lot of messed-up river systems.

There is no free lunch.

Dams take up space, wind turbines kill birds and make a noise, nuclear has other risks, etc etc.

One has to chose between the actions and the consequences.

Dammed if you do and dammed if you dont?

Perhaps this reference could provide some pointers as to what to do.

http://waterconsciousness.com

Good article. The issue of methane and dams is rarely discussed.
I think that, at present, countries don't have to include these
in their greenhouse inventory (we don't and they aren't included in
the international Edgar database). Which means plenty of
countries are getting a free lunch at Kyoto and the planet's
expense.

However, the actual warming due to a tonne of methane is NOT 25 times
that of a tonne of CO2. Over a 20 year period it causes 72
times the warming. It's high warming but short time in the
atmosphere (about
a decade) means that methane reductions can bring about quick
reductions in climate forcing (warming).

Who would stick a blow torch on their leg for 10 seconds.
Nobody ... but suppose I tell you that averaged over 20
minutes the temperature is only 48 degrees. Would that
prompt you to try it?

That's exactly what is happening with methane.
Its impact is being averaged over
a really long period but it is causing a lot of warming right
now. Atmospheric methane levels are more than double preindustrial
levels and ALL of that methane has been put there in the past
2 decades, where as the 35% rise in CO2 has been accumulating
for centuries.

Ho Hum, the evidence of wind turbines killing birds is flimsy (more are killed by road transport and no-one advocates banning cars). I stood next to some last week in Sardinia. In fact a clump of 20 or so. Hardly any noise from the turbines or from the Europeans who have accepted wind power as a fact of life and an addition to the skyline.
Dams are increasingly the wages paid by poor nations so rich nations can grow, despite indelicate truth that conservation is an effective but overlooked strategy and that growth accelerates climate change. I live in Laos which is at risk of being turned into a giant puddle or great Hollywood epic as the upstream Chinese dams fail. It was the release of water to prevent widening cracks in Chinese dams that added to Lao and Thai floods last year, the Chinese ambassador admitted on Thai TV. while the Mekong River Commission, the obsequious bend-me-over-and-do-it-from-behind organisation that is supposedly the steward of this mighty river assiduously denied it, contradicting the Ambo and Lao army captain laying sandbags outside my house.

All over Laos, dams are uprooting people's lives, lives that had only begun to be stable after years of war. In many instances they do not get the power. it is exported to a neighbouring country and they put up with candles.

The situation is complex and complicated by UXO which limits where people can be moved to. Lao depend on fish for most dietary protein so disruption of fish stocks mean broad based hunger and protein energy malnutrition in an already stunted people.

There are some good dams and competent environmental protection, but as David has said, the disingenuous carbon trading scheme has bred all sorts of dodgy deals including REDD, which spell disasters, mostly for a frightened and disenfranchised people like the Lao and the Chinese peasants.

If dam builders and planners think they are so, I guess they should be prepared to move out of their condo's in Washington and be relocated to Arizona. All these plans are great if they happen to others.