What does the Arab world do when its water runs out? Drink your oil, bitches!
Obama Retard
water-running-out
Water usage in north Africa and the Middle East is unsustainable
and shortages are likely to lead to further instability – unless
governments take action to solve the impending crisis.
Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment
have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in
the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less
recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria,
Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly
linked to a growing regional water crisis.
The diverse states that make up the Arab world, stretching from
the Atlantic coast to Iraq, have some of the world's greatest
oil reserves, but this disguises the fact that they mostly
occupy hyper-arid places. Rivers are few, water demand is
increasing as populations grow, underground reserves are
shrinking and nearly all depend on imported staple foods that
are now trading at record prices.
For a region that expects populations to double to more than 600
million within 40 years, and climate change to raise
temperatures, these structural problems are political dynamite
and already destabilising countries, say the World Bank, the UN
and many independent studies.
In recent reports they separately warn that the riots and
demonstrations after the three major food-price rises of the
last five years in north Africa and the Middle East might be
just a taste of greater troubles to come unless countries start
to share their natural resources, and reduce their profligate
energy and water use.
"In the future the main geopolitical resource in the Middle East
will be water rather than oil. The situation is alarming," said
Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey last week, as she
launched a Swiss and Swedish government-funded report for the EU.
The Blue Peace report examined long-term prospects for seven
countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian
territories and Israel. Five already suffer major structural
shortages, it said, and the amount of water being taken from
dwindling sources across the region cannot continue much longer.
"Unless there is a technological breakthrough or a miraculous
discovery, the Middle East will not escape a serious [water]
shortage," said Sundeep Waslekar, a researcher from the
Strategic Foresight Group who wrote the report.
Autocratic, oil-rich rulers have been able to control their
people by controlling nature and have kept the lid on political
turmoil at home by heavily subsidising "virtual" or "embedded"
water in the form of staple grains imported from the US and
elsewhere.
But, says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East programme at
the Washington-based Centre for Strategic Studies, existing
political relationships are liable to break down when, as now,
the price of food hits record levels and the demand for water
and energy soars.
"Water is a fundamental part of the social contract in Middle
Eastern countries. Along with subsidised food and fuel,
governments provide cheap or even free water to ensure the
consent of the governed. But when subsidised commodities have
been cut, instability has often followed.
"Water's own role in prompting unrest has so far been relatively
limited, but that is unlikely to hold. Future water scarcity
will be much more permanent than past shortages, and the
techniques governments have used in responding to past
disturbances may not be enough," he says.
"The problem will only get worse. Arab countries depend on other
countries for their food security – they're as sensitive to
floods in Australia and big freezes in Canada as on the yield in
Algeria or Egypt itself," says political analyst and Middle East
author Vicken Cheterian.
"In 2008/9, Arab countries' food imports cost $30bn. Then,
rising prices caused waves of rioting and left the unemployed
and impoverished millions in Arab countries even more exposed.
The paradox of Arab economies is that they depend on oil prices,
while increased energy prices make their food more expensive,"
says Cheterian.
The region's most food- and water-insecure country is Yemen, the
poorest in the Arab world, which gets less than 200 cubic metres
of water per person a year – well below the international water
poverty line of 1,000m3 – and must import 80-90% o f its food.
According to Mahmoud Shidiwah, chair of the Yemeni water and
environment protection agency, 19 of the country's 21 main
aquifers are no longer being replenished and the government has
considered moving Sana'a, the capital city, with around two
million people, which is expected to run dry within six years.
"Water shortages have increased political tensions between
groups. We have a very big problem," he says.
Two internal conflicts are already raging in Yemen and the
capital has been rocked by riots this month. "There is an
obvious link between high food prices and unrest [in the
region]. Drought, population and water scarcity are aggravating
factors. The pressure on natural resources is increasing, and
the pressure on the land is great," said Giancarlo Cirri, the UN
World Food Programme representative in Yemen.
"If you look at the recent Small Arms Survey [in Yemen], they
try to document the increase in what they call social violence
due to this pressure on water and land. This social violence is
increasing, and related deaths and casualties are pretty high.
The death tolls in the northern conflict and the southern
conflict are a result of these pressures," said Cirri.
Other Arab countries are not faring much better. Jordan, which
expects water demand to double in the next 20 years, faces
massive shortages because of population growth and a
longstanding water dispute with Israel. Its per capita water
supply will fall from the current 200m3 per person to 91m3
within 30 years, says the World Bank. Palestine and Israel
fiercely dispute fragile water resources.
Algeria and Tunisia, along with the seven emirates in the UAE,
Morocco, Iraq and Iran are all in "water deficit" – using far
more than they receive in rain or snowfall. Only Turkey has a
major surplus, but it is unwilling to share. Abu Dhabi, the
world's most profligate water user, says it will run out of its
ancient fossil water reserves in 40 years; Libya has spent $20bn
pumping unreplenishable water from deep wells in the desert but
has no idea how long the resource will last; Saudi Arabian water
demand has increased by 500% in 25 years and is expected to
double again in 20 years – as power demand surges as much as 10%
a year.
The Blue Peace report highlights the rapid decline in many of
the region's major water sources. The water level in the Dead
Sea has dropped by nearly 150ft since the 1960s. The marshlands
in Iraq have shrunk by 90% and the Sea of Galilee (Lake
Kinneret) is at risk of becoming irreversibly salinised by salt
water springs below it.
Meanwhile, says the UN, farm land is becoming unusable as
irrigation schemes and intensive farming lead to waterlogging
and desalination.
Some oil-rich Arab countries are belatedly beginning to address
the problem. Having drained underground aquifers to grow
inappropriate crops for many years, they have turned en masse to
desalination. More than 1,500 massive plants now line the Gulf
and the Mediterranean and provide much of north Africa and the
Middle East's drinking water – and two-thirds of the world's
desalinated water.
The plants take salty or brackish water, and either warm it,
vaporise it and separate off the salts and impurities, or pass
it through filters. According to the WWF, it's an "expensive,
energy intensive and greenhouse gas-emitting way to get fresh
water", but costs are falling and the industry is booming.
Solar-powered plants are being built for small communities but
no way has been found to avoid the concentrated salt stream that
the plants produce. The impurities extracted from the water
mostly end up back in the sea or in aquifers and kill marine
life.
Only now are countries starting to see the downsides of
desalination. Salt levels in the Arabian Gulf are eight times
higher in some places than they should be, as power-hungry water
plants return salt to an already saline sea. The higher salinity
of the seawater intake reduces the plant's efficiency and, in
some areas, marine life is suffering badly, affecting coral and
fishing catches.
Desalination has allowed dictators and elites to continue to
waste water on a massive scale. Nearly 20% of all Saudi oil
money in the 1970s and 80s was used to provide clean water to
grow wheat and other crops in regions that would not naturally
be able to do so. Parks, golf courses, roadside verges and
household gardens are all still watered with expensively
produced clean drinking water. The energy – and therefore water
– needed to keep barely insulated buildings super-cold in Gulf
states is astonishing.
A few Arab leaders recognise that water and energy profligacy
must be curbed if ecological disaster is to be avoided. In Abu
Dhabi, which is building Masdar, the $20bn futuristic city to be
run on renewable energy, the environment agency is spearheading
a massive drive to reduce water use. Concrete is replacing water-
hungry grass verges and new laws demand water-saving devices in
all buildings.
"We cannot go on giving free water and energy. It's not
benefiting anyone. We have to change and we will change. We know
we must find common solutions," says Razan Khalifa al-Mubarak,
assistant head of the environment agency.
"Allah does not like those who waste," says Talib al-Shehhi,
director of preaching at the ministry of Islamic affairs.
"Safeguarding resources and water especially is central to
religion. The Qu'ran says water is a pillar of life and
consequently orders us to save [it], and Muhammad instructs us
to do so."
Water awareness is definitely growing, says Kala Krishnan,
member of an eco club at the large Indian school in Abu Dhabi.
"People were amazed when we showed them how much they use in a
day. We stacked up 550 one-litre bottles and they refused to
believe it. Now schools are competing with each other to reduce
water wastage."
More than 2,000 mosques in Abu Dhabi have been fitted with water-
saving devices, which is saving millions of gallons of water a
year when people wash before prayer. Other UAE states are
expected to follow.
The more drastic response to the crisis is to shift farming
elsewhere and to build reserves. Saudi Arabia said in 2008 it
would cut domestic wheat output by 12.5% a year to save its
water supplies. It is now subsidising traders to buy land in
Africa. Since the troubles in Egypt and north Africa, it has
said it aims to double its wheat reserves to 1.4m tonnes, enough
to satisfy demand for a year.
Countries now recognise how vulnerable they are to conflict. The
UAE, which includes Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has started to build
the world's largest underground reservoir, with 26,000,000m3 of
desalinated water. It will store enough water for 90 days when
completed. The reasoning is that the UAE is now wholly dependent
on desalination to survive.
"Wars can erupt because of water," said Mohammed Khalfan al-
Rumaithi, director general of the UAE's National Emergency and
Crisis Management Authority last week. "Using groundwater for
agriculture is risky. If it doesn't harm us it will harm other
generations," he told the Federal National Council.
"We suffer from a shortage of water and we should think about
solutions to preserve it rather than using it for agriculture,"
he said.
Water shortages, concludes the Blue Peace report, are now so
alarming that in a few years opposing camps will have little
choice but to co-operate and share resources, or face ruinous
conflict. That way, it says, instead of a potential accelerator
of conflict, the water crisis can become an opportunity for a
new form of peace where any two countries with access to
adequate, clean and sustainable water resources do not feel
motivated to engage in a military conflict. It sounds
optimistic, but the wind of change blowing through the region
suggests everything is possible.
IN NUMBERS: Middle East water facts
10.7% Food-price inflation in Egypt during 2010.
25% Expected increase in Saudi water demand up to 2020.
2.9% Yemen population growth each year.
14 cubic kilometres of water loss from Dead Sea in the past 30
years (1980-2010).
240 cubic metres per person annual water use in Israel.
75 cubic metres per person annual water use in Palestinian West
Bank.
$0.53 Cost per cubic metre of desalinated water.
120 Desalination plants throughout UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.
Bally-Total-Fitness-8-Edgeboro-Road-East-Brunswick-N.J.
Fresh water can and is easily obtainable from the desalination of
ocean water.
Marvin
Bally-Total-Fitness-8-Edgeboro-Road-East-Brunswick-N.J. wrote:
> Fresh water can and is easily obtainable from the desalination of ocean
> water.
And you can do it with abundant solar or oil. All they need is for a few
European scientist to show them how. ;-D
Alfred Stomacker
wrote:
some how I guess this is all our fault .
they did not plan on the fact that the desert could only sustain so
many people . Just like the Africans breeding themselves into
starvation .
Wonder why we do not charge the oil rich countries a premium for food
just like they are doing to us with oil .
Kind of makes me think there is a plan going on to let them run out
of water and oil . We will then still have plenty of oil anyway since
we do not drill for ours .
Alfred Stomacker
<N...@AOL.COM> wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 23:11:50 +0100, "Obama Retard" <ret...@obama.com>
>wrote:
>
>>http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/20/arab-nations-
>>water-running-out
>>
>>Water usage in north Africa and the Middle East is unsustainable
>>and shortages are likely to lead to further instability – unless
>>governments take action to solve the impending crisis.
>>
>>Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment
>>have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in
>>the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less
>>recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria,
>>Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly
>>linked to a growing regional water crisis.
>
>
>
>Good !!!!! Now we can sell them water at $500 a barrel.
>It's a good think for them that they only use it for drinking
>and cooking, not for bathing.
>
>
Except that we would do the liberal thing and tax payers would pay for
it just like feed the Africans for 60 years because they can not stop
breeding to excess
S. Billups
news:c0b7064f118caf84...@msgid.frell.theremailer.net:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/20/arab-nations-
> water-running-out
>
> Water usage in north Africa and the Middle East is unsustainable
> and shortages are likely to lead to further instability – unless
> governments take action to solve the impending crisis.
>
> Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment
> have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in
> the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a less
> recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria,
> Yemen, Jordan and now Iran has been rising food prices, directly
> linked to a growing regional water crisis.
Just send some liberals over there. They got all the answers. Let them
refine camel piss.
> The diverse states that make up the Arab world, stretching from
> the Atlantic coast to Iraq, have some of the world's greatest
> oil reserves, but this disguises the fact that they mostly
> occupy hyper-arid places. Rivers are few, water demand is
> increasing as populations grow, underground reserves are
> shrinking and nearly all depend on imported staple foods that
> are now trading at record prices.
A fair going rate would be a gallon of water for a gallon of oil.
> For a region that expects populations to double to more than 600
> million within 40 years, and climate change to raise
> temperatures, these structural problems are political dynamite
> and already destabilising countries, say the World Bank, the UN
> and many independent studies.
Aw geez. No condoms in the Middle East?
> In recent reports they separately warn that the riots and
> demonstrations after the three major food-price rises of the
> last five years in north Africa and the Middle East might be
> just a taste of greater troubles to come unless countries start
> to share their natural resources, and reduce their profligate
> energy and water use.
>
> "In the future the main geopolitical resource in the Middle East
> will be water rather than oil. The situation is alarming," said
> Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey last week, as she
> launched a Swiss and Swedish government-funded report for the EU.
>
> The Blue Peace report examined long-term prospects for seven
> countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian
> territories and Israel. Five already suffer major structural
> shortages, it said, and the amount of water being taken from
> dwindling sources across the region cannot continue much longer.
>
> "Unless there is a technological breakthrough or a miraculous
> discovery, the Middle East will not escape a serious [water]
> shortage," said Sundeep Waslekar, a researcher from the
> Strategic Foresight Group who wrote the report.
Tough shit. He who has the oil, er water makes the rules now, eh?
Fuck em.
> The region's most food- and water-insecure country is Yemen, the
> poorest in the Arab world, which gets less than 200 cubic metres
> of water per person a year – well below the international water
> poverty line of 1,000m3 – and must import 80-90% o f its food.
>
> According to Mahmoud Shidiwah, chair of the Yemeni water and
> environment protection agency, 19 of the country's 21 main
> aquifers are no longer being replenished and the government has
> considered moving Sana'a, the capital city, with around two
> million people, which is expected to run dry within six years.
>
> "Water shortages have increased political tensions between
> groups. We have a very big problem," he says.
>
> Two internal conflicts are already raging in Yemen and the
> capital has been rocked by riots this month. "There is an
> obvious link between high food prices and unrest [in the
> region]. Drought, population and water scarcity are aggravating
> factors. The pressure on natural resources is increasing, and
> the pressure on the land is great," said Giancarlo Cirri, the UN
> World Food Programme representative in Yemen.
>
> "If you look at the recent Small Arms Survey [in Yemen], they
> try to document the increase in what they call social violence
> due to this pressure on water and land. This social violence is
> increasing, and related deaths and casualties are pretty high.
> The death tolls in the northern conflict and the southern
> conflict are a result of these pressures," said Cirri.
The more of each other they kill the better off we all are.
Al Gore at work.
Nothing has changed. The assholes have been fighting over water for
10,000 years.