{"id":14716,"date":"2023-07-30T20:09:12","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T03:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14716"},"modified":"2023-08-02T21:12:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T04:12:42","slug":"issue-of-the-week-environment-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14716","title":{"rendered":"Issue of the Week : Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Salt
A Climate Warning From The Cradle of Civilization<\/em>, Sunday New York Times, 7.31.23<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main story on the front page of today’s Sunday New York Times is a story about the beginning of civilization to the potential end of civilization all in one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It starts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every schoolchild learns the name: Mesopotamia \u2013 the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilization.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragically, this is far past hopeful hyperbole. Once upon a time every schoolchild knew this. Now, no one knows anything. Hyperbole, yes, but barely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the race speeds up toward the convergence of hells that may well end life on earth, as the human species finds new ways to destroy its children and enable the predators, to threaten nuclear destruction, to starve itself to death, to cognitively and morally shut down related to the shallowness of self-absorption writ as enlightenment, and the list goes on–the climate, which can never be seperated from these and other issues in terms of any effective ways to deal with it, threatens us more than ever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We take you now staright to this front page story. Read it and weep. And learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CLIMATE WARNING FROM THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Alissa J. Rubin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographs and Video by Bryan Denton<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alissa J. Rubin and Bryan Denton spent months reporting from nearly two dozen cities, towns and villages across Iraq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 29, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word itself, Mesopotamia, means the land between rivers. It is where the wheel was invented, irrigation flourished and the earliest known system of writing emerged. The rivers here, some scholars say, fed the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon and converged at the place described in the Bible as the Garden of Eden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, so little water remains in some villages near the Euphrates River that families are dismantling their homes, brick by brick, piling them into pickup trucks \u2014 window frames, doors and all \u2014 and driving away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou would not believe it if I say it now, but this was a watery place,\u201d said Sheikh Adnan al Sahlani, a science teacher here in southern Iraq near Naseriyah, a few miles from the Old Testament city of Ur, which the Bible describes as the hometown of the Prophet Abraham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, \u201cnowhere has water,\u201d he said. Everyone who is left is \u201csuffering a slow death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Children
Boys searching for fish in the stagnant, shallow waters of a shrinking irrigation canal in a village on the outskirts of Najaf, Iraq.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Salt
Desiccated agricultural fields are now a common sight in once-verdant areas of Iraq. In many places, the groundwater has become too salty to drink.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Two
A dead water buffalo in a family\u2019s corral near Basra, Iraq. As water has become scarce, farmers have struggled to keep their herds alive. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have to go back to biblical times to find a more verdant Iraq. Well into the 20th century, the southern city of Basra was known as the \u201cVenice of the East\u201d for its canals, plied by gondola-like boats that threaded through residential neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, for much of its history, the Fertile Crescent \u2014 often defined as including areas of modern-day Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza \u2014 did not lack for water, inspiring centuries of artists and writers who depicted the region as a lush ancient land. Spring floods were common, and rice, one of the most water-intensive crops in the world, was grown for more than 2,000 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now nearly 40 percent<\/a> of Iraq, an area roughly the size of Florida, has been overtaken by blowing desert sands that claim tens of thousands of acres<\/a> of arable land every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change and desertification are to blame, scientists say. So are weak governance and the continued reliance on wasteful irrigation techniques that date back millenniums to Sumerian times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tug of war over water \u2014 similar to the struggles over the Colorado River in the United States<\/a>, the Mekong in Southeast Asia<\/a>and the Nile in northern Africa<\/a> \u2014 has also intensified water shortages for tens of millions of people across the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drying Up the Fertile Crescent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Upstream dams in Turkey and Iran have siphoned off water from Iraq\u2019s two major rivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Sea<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dams built in the Tigris and Euphrates river basin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TURKEY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keban Dam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caspian Sea<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karakaya Dam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ilisu Dam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ataturk Dam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mosul Dam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daryan Dam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mediterranean Sea<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tigris and Euphrates river basin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LEBANON<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SYRIA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baghdad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAQ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JORDAN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SAUDI ARABIA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KUWAIT<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Area of detail<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Persian Gulf<\/p>\n\n\n\n

250 kilometers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

250 miles<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: Not all dams are shown, and smaller tributaries are omitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Global Dam Tracker<\/a> by Alice Tianbo Zhang and Vincent Xinyi Gu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Elena Shao<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another culprit is common to large regions of the world: a growing population whose water demands continue to rise, both because of sheer numbers and, in many places, higher living standards, increasing individual consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in Iraq, the fallout is everywhere, fraying society, spurring deadly clashes between villages, displacing thousands of people every year, emboldening extremists and leaving ever more land looking like a barren moonscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Depleted, dirty rivers and groundwater are causing typhoid, hepatitis A and outbreaks of cholera, like this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creeping desert sands are swallowing farmland, forcing people to crowd into cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rivers and canals have dipped so low that Islamic State militants cross them easily to attack villages and security outposts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fish farmers have threatened government regulators who have tried to close them down for violating water restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country is even changing underground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many areas, water pumped from below the surface is too salty to drink, the result of dwindling water, agricultural runoff and untreated waste. \u201cEven my cows won\u2019t drink it,\u201d one farmer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in the north, where fresh water has historically been available, well diggers in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, bore down 580 feet last summer \u2014 and still found only salty water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iraq is now the fifth most vulnerable country to extreme temperatures, water scarcity and food shortages, the United Nations says<\/a>. Next door in Iran, a province of two million people could run out of water<\/a> by mid-September, Iranian lawmakers said, leaving few options beyond mass exodus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for the rest of the Middle East and some other areas of the world \u2014 including parts of Mexico, Pakistan, India and the Mediterranean \u2014 Iraq and its neighbors offer an unmistakable warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of this region\u2019s vulnerabilities, one of the most vulnerable on the planet, it is one of the first places that is going to show some kind of extreme succumbing, literally, to climate change,\u201d said Charles Iceland, the director of water security for the World Resources Institute, a research organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n