I have always said that these environmentalists are pseudo-environmentalists, and some people disagree. The reason I think they are pseudo-environmentalists is because although they claim to be doing environmental protection work, they are not actually doing real environmental protection work. Some of the things they do are actually against environmental protection. When I proposed the term "pseudo-environmentalism," some people said this was Cultural Revolution language. At that meeting, a journalist said it would be best not to use the term "pseudo-environmentalism." I think since there is such a thing as pseudoscience, there should also be pseudo-environmentalism. If using the word "pseudo" is considered Cultural Revolution language, then we shouldn't talk about pseudoscience either. So, I still insist on using the term "pseudo-environmentalism." Some people say using the term "extreme environmentalism" would be better, but I think there is a difference between them and extreme environmentalism. Because extreme environmentalists sincerely want to engage in environmental protection; their views may be extreme or wrong, but they are very sincere and full of passion. I believe there are no such people domestically. These domestic individuals are not genuinely engaged in environmental protection. However, they have an international background, which is linked to international extreme environmentalism and Western extreme environmentalist ideologies. Their ideas are all borrowed from there, nothing new. They also receive substantial funding from foreign institutions, political organizations, cult organizations, international foundations, and multinational corporations.
This matter I originally didn't intend to mention, but after my investigation, I gave a speech at Yunnan University where I jokingly mentioned these NGOs, which are non-governmental organizations. They claim to be non-governmental organizations, but I find this highly questionable since they receive money from foreign political organizations. Whether such organizations can be considered non-governmental organizations is still debatable. Our organization, New Threads, does not accept money from any politically affiliated organizations, so we are truly a NGO. This was just a joke, but it made them feel threatened, accusing me of spreading rumors. In interviews with Shanghai's Bund Pictorial, they claimed they absolutely did not receive money from foreign political organizations. If I don't clarify this matter, wouldn't it make it seem like I'm publicly spreading rumors? My statement was based on evidence found on Xiao Yi Liao's website (audience laughter) for Beijing Earth Village. Compared to other environmental organizations, this website is relatively well-built and more standardized. The reason it is standardized is that it discloses its financial status, though only for one year, 2002, and only on the English version of the site. The Chinese version does not have these materials. This is done to account to foreign donors regarding what money was received and how it was spent. It was the financial status of this particular year that caught my attention. In that year, they received over 1.7 million yuan in funding, mostly from abroad. Some of it came from government agencies, like the British Embassy in Beijing, which provided 400,000 yuan, and the Bohr Foundation, which provided 360,000 yuan. I know about the Bohr Foundation; it is a political foundation associated with the Green Party abroad. The Green Party, as you know, was once a co-governing party in Germany but recently fell out of power. This foundation explicitly states that it belongs to the Green Party’s political foundation. They received 360,000 yuan from here. There were also some foreign multinational corporations, like Shell Oil Company, which provided 130,000 yuan, and ExxonMobil Oil Company, which also provided some funding. Their financial situation is as follows, and I list them all to prove that I am not spreading rumors—they indeed receive money from foreign government agencies and political organizations.
When I said these things, I had not yet touched on cult organizations, which is something I discovered later. I thank Beijing Earth Village for providing us with such detailed activity information on their website. One piece of news mentioned that in August 2004, they jointly held a training session with the International Education Foundation on service spirit and green awareness. The International Education Foundation sounds serious and proper, like a very reputable international foundation, but in fact, it is a cult-related foundation. This cult is the Korean Unification Church, which set up this foundation. This foundation is very active in China because it can provide money and has a good-sounding name, so not only environmental organizations, even some government departments like the Ministry of Health, have cooperated with them for training. What kind of training? Sexual purity training, educating teenagers not to engage in sexual behavior too early or extramarital sex, etc. This sounds reasonable, so many entities cooperate with them for training, but they fail to consider the doctrines embedded within. The reason they advocate this is because they believe their leader, Moon Sun-myung, is a savior and the parent of all humanity, and everyone must listen to him. The most unique aspect of the Unification Church, which you might see on foreign TV, is the collective weddings. Thousands get married at once, recognizing Moon Sun-myung and his wife as true parents, and the brides and grooms are paired by Moon Sun-myung, randomly matched without prior knowledge of each other, and thus they marry. They have some strange practices, which is why they are considered a cult abroad. But they are very active domestically. Regarding this green consciousness, I wonder if it will eventually become Unification Church consciousness.
I raised the issue of their funding sources, and they couldn’t refute it, so they turned around and questioned who funded my trip to Nujiang (laughter from the audience). (PowerPoint shows text) A netizen watched a Phoenix Television program called "Social Visibility" hosted by Zimo Ceng. Phoenix Television came to interview me on October 20th, and they sounded very nice, saying they had previously done a program opposing the construction of dams on the Nu River, which was an exclusive interview with Yongchen Wang. After listening to the high-level forum on October 22nd, they said their previous understanding of Nujiang might have been biased, so they hoped to exclusively interview me to clear up some misunderstandings. I was leaving the next day and heading to Zhejiang, so I couldn’t arrange the time, but they kept pestering me, almost shamelessly. Feeling soft-hearted, I agreed to go. I thought it was a good opportunity to clarify things to the public, so their program came out quickly, just a few days later. I watched it in Zhejiang and was greatly shocked. I found out that besides interviewing me, they went back to interview Yongchen Wang to counter me. It was like I would say something, and then Yongchen Wang would counter it (laughter from the audience). Originally, it was supposed to be an exclusive interview, advertised as Fang Zhouzi discussing Nujiang issues, but Yongchen Wang ended up speaking more than I did (laughter from the audience). Well, that aside, because some of Yongchen Wang’s counterarguments were not convincing, she herself might have thought they were reasonable, but listeners might have thought they were just quibbling. What made me angry was that they edited my statements, taking them out of context. She questioned the source of our expedition funds, asking who paid for the trip. I honestly and straightforwardly explained that before going to Nujiang, Mr. He asked if I wanted to go, and I said yes. If friends invited me to an event, I wouldn’t question the source of the funds, believing they were normal. So, I never thought about who paid during the entire process. Later, because I questioned the funding sources of these environmentalists, they also started questioning the funding for my activities (laughter from the audience), so I became interested in this issue and asked. It turned out the funds came from the National Hydropower Planning Institute, allocated from planning expenses. This is normal, national funding, part of the planning process. And they didn’t just invite us; they also invited environmentalists and anti-dam advocates to inspect. This is a normal activity, so I don’t think there’s anything embarrassing about it. However, they deleted all of this before airing it, making it seem like I had no idea who paid for the trip from start to finish. This person (a netizen) was very angry and said, “It’s clearly lying.” “When Zimo Ceng asked who paid for the expedition to Nujiang, it was obvious he was lying. He said he is carefree and doesn’t care about money, not knowing who paid. I immediately began to look down on him (laughter from the audience). This is impossible. Imagine someone inviting you somewhere without asking who invited you—no way, I know this person isn’t good (laughter from the audience). Moreover, calling others pseudo-environmentalists, this person must have ulterior motives, either being paid by someone or deliberately seeking fame through causing trouble. He must not be a good person.” I originally had some goodwill towards Phoenix Television, which is why I took the time to give them an exclusive interview, but after seeing this, I stopped watching Phoenix Television altogether (laughter from the audience). Let me add, regarding Zimo Ceng, during the interview, I felt she wasn’t very respectful. When I answered her questions, as soon as she saw the camera wasn’t on her, she lowered her head and didn’t listen to what I was saying at all. I’ve done so many television interviews, and this was the first time I encountered such a host (laughter from the audience). Perhaps she already had plans to scheme against me and didn’t care about what I was saying. Reflecting on it, I think this was probably the reason.
I don’t think there’s anything shameful about the issue of activity funding. The cost of this inspection and receiving funds from others to conduct activities are two entirely different matters. If someone invites you to inspect and pays for it, it’s natural for the inviter to pay, just like inviting someone to appraise or review a doctoral thesis, paying them is normal. This doesn’t mean your views must align with the inviter’s. However, if you apply for a fund to conduct certain activities, that’s a different matter. You must fully comply with their intentions; otherwise, they won’t give you money next time, and they could even hold you accountable. If you were supposed to protect the environment but didn’t, or if you were supposed to do research but wasted the money, they could hold you accountable. Therefore, these are entirely different matters. They conflating these issues, I think, is a despicable tactic to confuse the audience and imply that I was bought off by some interest group. If someone was bought off, their position would change, for example, if I originally supported the environmentalists and suddenly opposed them. That’s not the case; I criticized pseudo-environmentalists before going, and my stance hasn’t changed at all. How can you suspect I was bought off? The crucial point is whether what I say makes sense, regardless of my motive. Why pursue my motive? If you can’t find fault with what I say, you resort to pursuing my motive. Even if I had a despicable motive, as long as what I say is reasonable, it can still be accepted, right? This kind of attack is purely personal. It targets the person rather than what they say. I pointed out the funding sources of these environmentalists not because I think their funding sources are problematic, but because I have analyzed and proven that what they say is unreliable. Therefore, I had the leisure to explain why they have such absurd views. Now, because they can’t disprove my claims, they turn around and suspect my motives, which is putting the cart before the horse.
I mentioned earlier that I have consistently criticized these pseudo-environmentalists, even before going to Nujiang. This is due to the debate about whether humans should respect nature. While promoting the idea that humans should respect nature, they also promote superstitious beliefs against science, especially Yongchen Wang. In her article "Ecological Concerns and Media Responsibility," she mentions not only this article but also in her officially published book titled "Green Lens," that in the Meili Snow Mountain in Tibet, years ago, there was an avalanche. Chinese and Japanese mountaineers climbed the mountain, and an avalanche occurred, resulting in the death of many climbers, with 17 people dying there. She says the cause of the avalanche was because the local Tibetan Buddhism considers Meili Snow Mountain a "sacred mountain" that cannot be touched. When they attempted to climb, the local lamas opposed it, but they insisted on climbing anyway. The lamas prayed, and then the sacred mountain retaliated, causing the avalanche that engulfed them, leaving them there forever. She believes this was caused by the sacred mountain's retaliation and the prayers. Isn’t this superstition? I think this is superstition and anti-science, preventing exploration and reconnaissance work. In fact, there are sacred mountains in Tibet beyond Meili Snow Mountain, like Mount Everest, which people still climb without similar incidents. They just use this coincidental example to argue their point.
Another point I mentioned before going to Nujiang: I saw Yongchen Wang in a Tom.com interview titled "Nu River is Asking Us Humans for Help." She said, "The electricity generation capacity of Nu River is 20 million kilowatt-hours. Regardless of saving or adjusting structures, it is effortless to obtain 20 million kilowatt-hours. To produce 20 million kilowatt-hours, we destroy the ecological river and the world's largest canyon, which is regrettable from any perspective." "Why would we destroy the world's largest canyon for 20 million kilowatt-hours of electricity?" First, Nu River is not the world's largest canyon, so that's incorrect. Second, I'll focus on the 20 million kilowatt-hours. I mentioned earlier that Nu River's electricity generation capacity is 100 billion kilowatt-hours. Why did she reduce it so drastically? It's because she confused electricity generation capacity with electricity generation power (laughter from the audience). Nu River's installed power is 20 million kilowatts, but she didn’t understand that kilowatt-hours refer to degrees. Thus, she mistakenly calculated it as 20 million kilowatt-hours. 20 million kilowatt-hours is a very small amount of electricity, enough for a small city's residential electricity consumption in a year. I pointed out this error, saying she doesn’t distinguish between kilowatts and degrees, or between electricity generation capacity and power, basic concepts taught in junior high school physics (laughter from the audience). Later, she lied, explaining that she meant 20 million kilowatts, but the recorder at Tom.com got it wrong (laughter from the audience), shifting the blame onto the recorder. This explanation doesn’t hold water because she emphasized how little electricity it was, implying it could easily be saved. If she had meant 20 million kilowatts, that’s a huge amount of electricity, difficult to save, equivalent to 100 billion kilowatt-hours per year. They refuse to admit mistakes. We’ve pointed out countless errors, but they have never admitted a single one. If they honestly admitted to not understanding the difference between electricity generation capacity and power, that would be it. But to maintain their image, they lie instead. Misleading people during interviews harms many people, leading them to mistakenly believe the Nujiang project is inefficient.
There’s also fabrication. Claims about pristine rivers are obviously fabricated. Another is the claim that "the United States has entered the dam-removal era," suggesting the U.S. is now dismantling large dams. You may have heard this often, including in a special edition of National Geographic Magazine, which stated that other developed countries have realized the significant harm caused by building dams, so the U.S. no longer builds dams and is even dismantling them. China, however, continues to build aggressively, and there are several reasons for this. The U.S. currently builds fewer dams because it has already developed most of its hydropower potential, with 70% of its developable resources utilized. China is just starting. The U.S. has built tens of thousands of dams. Dams have a limited lifespan, especially smaller ones, which last decades or a century before being dismantled when they become obsolete. Every year, the U.S. dismantles dams because some reach the end of their service life, necessitating removal. China also continuously dismantles dams because it has tens of thousands of them, requiring regular removal. However, none of the influential large dams in the U.S. have been removed, such as the famous Hoover Dam, which remains intact. One despicable aspect of National Geographic Magazine is that it lists the dams being dismantled but doesn’t specify their sizes. The pictures it displays are of large dams like the Hoover Dam, giving the impression that these large dams are being dismantled (laughter from the audience). Later, a vice president of the Three Gorges Corporation wrote an article addressing this issue, displaying images of the dams being dismantled, all of which were small dams. Furthermore, the U.S. continues to build dams. In 1999, it completed the Seven Oaks Dam, the tallest in the world at 193 meters. Another dam recently completed is 97 meters tall. Several dozen more dams are planned for construction in the coming years. In Bush’s energy development plan, it mentions developing hydropower vigorously under the premise of protecting the environment and accelerating hydropower development. Translated roughly, that’s the gist. Therefore, claiming the U.S. no longer builds dams is definitely incorrect.
Another claim is that hydropower is not renewable clean energy, proposed by Xiaofan Fan. Xiaofan Fan might be among the famous environmentalists who have some connection to hydropower. Most of the other environmentalists come from humanities backgrounds, such as Xiaoyi Liao, who used to work at the Academy of Social Sciences’ Marxism-Leninism Institute (laughter from the audience), and later returned from abroad. Yongchen Wang is a journalist at the Central People's Broadcasting Station. Xiaofan Fan has some professional background; he is the chief engineer of Sichuan Geological Relics Park, tangentially related to hydropower. He rarely discusses geological issues like earthquakes but frequently talks about other topics. In his articles, he mentions that hydropower is not renewable clean energy. Why not? Because the lifespan of hydropower dams is limited, and they must eventually be dismantled, making it non-renewable. I think he confuses two issues. Just because a dam’s lifespan ends and it is dismantled doesn’t mean hydropower ceases; the river continues to flow, allowing another dam to be built and reused, making it perpetually renewable. It’s not like coal, which is gone once it’s mined. He intentionally confuses the issue. Then, he claims it’s not clean energy, arguing that reservoirs submerge vegetation, which decomposes and releases methane, polluting the environment. It’s said that research in Brazil studied the emissions released after reservoir construction. We