*People don't just migrate to the slums because they think they have any kind of future or opportunity there - they migrate out of a desperation, usually initiated by forced displacement.*

Poirot, in just about every country that I can think of, including
Australia, migration from the country to the cities is a common
occurance. There are many reasons. Just look around Australian
country towns, a large % of youth never return. It is not
desperation that drives them.

Peasanthood is hard work for little reward. Young people often
flee the conservative and strict rule of their parents. Those
bright lights give people hope for a better life, so they take the
risk. Hope is a major factor in driving human behaviour.

Personally I don't really think that dam construction in India is
such a bad thing, if I look at the bigger picture. For of course
their rainfall is very seasonal and a peasant is not going to
produce much at all from a couple of acres, without water for
irrigation.

Which brings us back once again to the real problem of India and
other developing countries, ie too many people to be sustainable

Well. yes. Yabby, I would agree with you that peasant farmers need water for their crops - and a dam would be fine - if yours was not one of the villages that was submerged, or if you managed to find access to the irrigation water before it was sucked away upstream by larger farms which grow thirsty crops like sugarcane and cotton.
Capital intensive projects can raise yields in the short term for larger farmers in the limited areas that receive irrigation water. But poor farmers living beyond the irrigated lands end up being starved of their most precious resource.
In India 60-70 percent of the population are extremely poor and have a direct dependence on their environment for survival. Rural India is, in fact, not lying down on this one. It has one of the largest, most dynamic vocal environment movements in the world. They realise that smaller projects which keep all aspects of their environment in balance gives more autonomy to ordinary people. They promote things such as the construction of water harvesting structures. These, mainly earthen structures, trap rain water which soaks into the ground and recharges the groundwater. the water is then drawn from the wells. It costs 340 times less per irrigated hectare to provide water than the massive dam building projects promoted by the likes of the World Bank.

I don’t understand why you are so disappointed Peter. Copenhagen confirmed the utter absence of consensus, the lack of scientific support, the emergence of a push for a wealth distribution tax and the emergence of common sense.

We now realize that water shortages are due to the lack of investment in dams and the energy crisis is due to lack of investment in base load power generation. We have confirmed that the IPCC assessments are rubbish science and Obama is lurching to the right with absolutely no hope of enacting any form of carbon trading that will disadvantage the US.

The EU is out on a limb and has no hope of enforcing their carbon compliance on the US, China or India. The grubby dictatorships in the rest of the developing and underdeveloped nations will not be getting funds by direct deposit from us into their Swiss Bank accounts.

We can only hope that 2010 will see the icing on the cake through legal action against those who have obtained huge sums of taxpayer monies by fraudulent means. It would be a hope too far to see the “partial commentariat” lose what is left their reputations and careers, but we can still hope.

What a wonderful 2009 and an equally wonderful prospect for 2010

You're sounding shriller with every post, spindoc. Fortunately, at this rate we won't be too far into 2010 before we won't be able to hear you.

Poirot, nations build dams for many reasons, including hydro power,
water for cities,industry etc, as well as irrigation. It would
be up to the Indian Govt to make an informed decision on this.
If the world bank supports them with finance, well good on them.

I can't see why channeling water underground, as well as large
dams, can't both happen at the same time.

Fact is that there are some problem with the former, like salt
rising to the surface with the rising water table. Its a problem
in Pakistan, I am not sure about India, but I would be suprised if
it was much different.

If Govts build dams, compensating those whose land is affected would
be a fair thing, but that is internal Indian politics, not the
business of the World Bank.

The fact remains that more irrigation has certainly helped feed the
ever growing population. My old 1960s geography book, which
I still have, mentions the Indian population being a "dense
population of 440 million" Now they have 1.17 billion!
So in reality its quite amazing that they have been able to
increase food production, given that enormous increase.

The problem is, when you push things to the limit, as they have
in India and as they did in Rwanda, with an ever increasing
population meaning ever less land per family, eventually its
solved by bloodshed, as more and more people fight over less and
less resources.

Who inspired with the chant 'Yes We Can'. Who said they're for 'Change' without saying what shape that change would take ... apart from they'd get a fairer understanding of the USA by the rest of the world?

We who understand the rhetoric of politicians knew he wouldn't and that we'd see a change. Not in circumstance but in stance by Obama himself. He's even adopted many of the policies of Bush and proposals of McCain.

Now that has become obvious we see the chanters resorting to the age old response of blaming the previous incumbants, the banking system and eventuallly they'll blame Western Liberal capitalism itself.

Climate change was scuttled by the climate change 'adaptors' at East Anglia, politicians like Obama who promised what they couldn't achieve, the blizzards in the north and a return to weather patterns of 30 years ago in the south.

The economic crisis origins were in legislation introducted in the US by the Democrats ... specifically the Community Re-investnent Act and by Clintons abolishing provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act.

The authors opinion on so many issues shows a complete ignorance of fact and an embracing of bias. In many cases his opinion is simply wrong.

Obama and Copenhagan were always going to fail the expectations of so many because both expectations were built on lies, wind and spin not on facts.

The economic crisis is worst in Britain where there was no economic stimulus. They have had six quarters of recession. Their economy after six quarters hasn't changed since the day of the collapse.

We smarties who have had stimulus have had six quarters of very low growth. The general concensus is the stimulus has achieved those 'milestones'. But basically our economy hasn't changed since the day of the collapse except the Governmentnow has massive debt.

Do the British expect their economy to pick up in the seventh quarter? No! Yet we optimitists, when we are about to see the end of the effect of the stimulus, expect our economy to be rejuvenated ...!