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Apparently the latest problem to face Iraq is a lack of water.
The Euphrates is drying up. Strangled by the water policies of Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey and Syria; a two-year drought; and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the river is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago. Some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now.
The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmers flee to the cities looking for work.
And…
At a conference in Baghdad — where participants drank bottled water from Saudi Arabia, a country with a fraction of Iraq’s fresh water — officials spoke of disaster.
“We have a real thirst in Iraq,” said Ali Baban, the minister of planning. “Our agriculture is going to die, our cities are going to wilt, and no state can keep quiet in such a situation.”
Forecasters have long warned that water will become an increasing source of tension in the world, and lack of it has the potential to contribute to growing instability and violence.
In this somewhat-academic TED talk, Jared Diamond talks about why societies collapse, calling water a “ticking time bomb”.
He notes that “an unsustainable course will get resolved one way or another in a few decades”.
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