Killing sparrows led to famines in China
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Killing sparrows led to famines in China
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Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#2I didn't realize sparrows ate insects too. The rule of thumb on the farm was "swallows good, sparrows bad". Swallows ate insects and sparrows ate grain. Maybe China could have replaced sparrows with swallows but that would probably have led to a different kind of disaster since importing species has a horrible track record.
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#3The Great Leap Forward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like A Mighty Storm, Suddenly And Furiously Blinding Our Senses.
We Stood Transfixed In Blank Devotion As Our Leader Spoke To Us, Looking Down On Our Mute Faces With A Great, Raging, And Unseeing Eye.
Like The Howling Glory Of The Darkest Winds, This Voice Was Thunderous And The Words Holy, Tangling Their Way Around Our Hearts And Clutching Our Innocent Awe.
A Message Of Avarice Rained Down And Carried Us Away Into False Dreams Of Endless Riches.
"Annihilate The Sparrow, That Stealer Of Seed, And Our Harvests Will Abound; We Will Watch Our Wealth Flood In."
And By Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent In Their Puddles, The Air Barren Of Song As The Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, The Locusts Noisily Thanked Us And Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole.
Millions Starved And We Became Skinnier And Skinnier, While Our Leaders Became Fatter And Fatter.
Finally, As That Blazing Sun Shone Down Upon Us, Did We Know That True Enemy Was The Voice Of Blind Idolatry; And Only Then Did We Begin To Think For Ourselves.
- Red Sparowes, "Every Red Heart Shines Toward The Red Sun"
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#4> The People’s Republic of China had to import 250,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union to stop the ecological disruption.
That was surprising. I knew about the sparrows and the famine, but had no idea about them being imported later by the hundreds of thousands.
> The diversion of labor from harvesting crops to steel production and construction meant crop supplies were left to rot in fields.
That was often done in badly built smelters which were not able to produce quality steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backyard_furnace
From the wikipedia article:
> Mao Zedong defended backyard furnaces despite the shortcomings, claiming that the practice showed mass enthusiasm, mass creativity, and mass participation in economic development.
At least with sparrows they sort of acknowledged they screwed up. But the steel furnace comment, reminded me of the local municipality, where we carefully sorted recyclables into multiple streams, which later turned out were dumped into a single landfill. Eventually, the municipality told people to stop sorting the materials, and just use the one bin, but people refused and raised complaints. The city understood their error, apologized, and reverted their decision, letting citizens perform their sorting ritual, but in the end still dumped everything into one large landfill.
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#5I wonder if any sparrow species unique to China went extinct ?
I did a search but no real info, the searches I found only talked about native vs imported. Not species that only exist in China.
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#6I find it rather strange that people tend to blame the famine on communism and central planning
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#7This is why I was concerned when I heard Google, of all companies, released lab grown mosquitos to wipe them out. I'm curious what happened with this effort. It's not exactly a vote of confidence when the other guy trying to do this is Bill Gates.
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#8How does the targetting of the sparrow species for annihilation in China compare to the post-Columbus ongoing deforestation in the Americas's? Xi does have the ecological health of the environment on his policy priority list which is a change from previous leadership driven by slavery to economic devop. There are documentaries on little birds by the sea. They have their place.
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#9The Great Leap Forward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like A Mighty Storm, Suddenly And Furiously Blinding Our Senses. We Stood Transfixed In Blank Devotion As Our Leader Spoke To Us, Looking Down On Our Mute Faces With A Great, Raging, And Unseeing Eye. Like The Howling Glory Of The Darkest Winds, This Voice Was Thunderous And The Words Holy, Tangling Their Way Around Our Hearts And Clutching Our Innocent Awe. A Messag…
For anyone else wondering why each word in this is capitalised:
“Despite having no lyrics, the album (by way of its song titles) follows the story of the Great Leap Forward in Mao Zedong-era China, more specifically recounting the Great Sparrow Campaign, a mass killing of sparrows (along with rats, flies and mosquitoes) that fed on a portion of the harvest and were seen as pests.” [0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Red_Heart_Shines_Towar...
Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China
#10I find it rather strange that people tend to blame the famine on communism and central planning
Why?