River Deep, Mountain High?

The Chinese, and to a lesser extent the US have embarked on a series of civil engineering projects, the like of which the world has never seen before .... levelling mountains, using the rubble to fill up the valleys, and thus create new level land for building on.

The example below, shows what's happened to mountains in western Shiyan province, between the first picture taken in 2010, and second from 2013 ... with work still ongoing.

Western Shiyan Province Mountain Flattening

... but this is just one of many such developments in China.

Now putting aside all the obvious ecological concerns (water and air pollution, landslides, subsidence and environmental degradation ... all of which the Americans, if not the Chinese, believe that they will overcome if they happen), the sheer bravado of these ventures, especially in China, shows that while Europe subsides ever further in to a Health and Safety led quagmire, with a 100 'risk assessments' required for every development. The Chinese new world order, and to a less extent the old 'new' world of the USA, are unhindered in their civil engineering and development plans, and are forging ahead ... The sweep of human progress, if such it is, apparently continues without us ....

.... leaving the real 'old world' of Europe behind, like a sclerotic, retired old incontinent.