I’m not much into environmental conservation, it's a battle that is already lost via a few degrees of temperature. The best we've got is a stay of execution by delaying the destruction of those places that due to history, geography, or in this case war and strife, have retained something of thier original selves. Maybe I am a little too much of a cynic, in any case one of those last places is getting wrecked. I better start at the beginning. 
A freighter about to enter the rapids just below Xiengkok. I'd still call this the upper Mekong, on the right is Shan state Burma, a place with all kinds of things going on and very little government. No flat flood plain here.
continued at Daily Kos...
