if you look at the data in a clear, sober manner, hydro is not just the best way to generate sufficient amounts of electricity to maintain the viability of industrial civilization. it is the only way to do it - or the only way we know how to, right now.
it's not the best option; it's the only option.
as i'm not a naturalist, i don't care about things like rerouting rivers - those rivers reroute on their own anyways, it's not like god made them that way, or something. i have no ideological opposition to geo-engineering, a priori, on principle; to the contrary, i think that the best way to co-exist on the planet is going to need to be to change it a little. i have no patience for fallacies of naturalism.
but, i understand that hydro construction has historically had some problems attached to it, in the way that it affects non-human species, as well as indigenous peoples. when i attach this caveat - responsibly - i mean it. it's not just a throw-on. i'm not running for office; i don't care about votes. we need serious scientific analysis and very purposeful mitigation strategies to ensure that we're not just avoiding negatively impacting the life around the dams, but potentially even making things better.
and, this mindset - ecologically conscious geo-engineering - is the mindset that is required, moving forward. we're going to need to get used to massive projects that take decades to plan, instead of throwing things together haphazardly to extract a few dollars. energy should ultimately be generated to maximize use, not profit. and, that's hard - that's not how we think, not how we do things. but, that is what needs to change, more so than the specific source of power generation.
one day, we may master fusion, or we may understand how to manipulate antimatter. but, twenty years has passed too many times to rely on these projections. for the foreseeable future, there is not another answer, and we're just wasting time and resources pretending that there is.
so, build the damned dams.
but, do it fucking right, too.