Climate change is more about climate uncertainty and disruption. Many papers have been written on the impact of climate change and water security (including a few by me), but one increasing threat is that of conflict and war resulting from climate impacts to water availability. Water Wars was the subject of my first novel: “Threatened Waters.” An excellent read recently appeared in bbc.com entitled “How Water Shortages Are Brewing Wars” by Sandy Milne. To read the article click on the above picture.
A Happy 4th of July for the Nation
Two hundred and forty-five years ago, a year into the Revolutionary War, freedom from the crown of England was declared by the Continental Congress. Nearly two and a half centuries, and yet some in the past year would believe that the institutions many have fought and died for stand in their way. We are a divided nation, but one which has withstood many dark days and challenges domestic and foreign. On this 4th, let us all see ourselves not as right or left, D or R, but as Americans fortunate enough to live in a country which may be, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, an imperfect union, but a union which where change and perfection are within reach.
I was born on the 4th of July, so it has always been a special day for many reasons. Make this 4th a special day for all. Happy 4th!
WATER WARS: ETHIOPIA'S AND EGYPT'S BATTLE OVER THE NILE
Seventy-five miles before the Blue Nile flows into Sudan, Ethiopia is filling the largest reservoir in Africa, and no one but Ethiopia and Chinese interests is celebrating. At close to five billion in cost, China’s Gezhouba Corporation and Exim Bank are funding much of Ethiopia’s goals of becoming the power purveyor of North Africa. The absence of a coherent legal framework for allocating and timing the Nile’s flow has Sudan worried and Egypt furious. Like all upstream water users, Ethiopia claims its filling of the Grand Renaissance Dam will not impact downstream flows or the antiquated 1920’s agreement to share the Nile. Ethiopia sees the project as a means to provide food security, provide power to 60% of its citizens, and control drought while downstream neighbors are seeing red over the Blue Nile.
The conflict is not new. What do the US’s Lake Powell, Turkey’s Southeast Anatolia Project, and the Nile’s Grand Renaissance Dam all have in common? The answer is “Threatened Waters,” my first novel. What could possibly go wrong with that setting for a thriller?
A Better America and a Challenge
As Americans, we believe in the possible. We have always felt that through hard work, strong principles, and empathy toward your fellow man (and woman), the years ahead and generations after us will be better. We have been better as a nation than we are today. Today is Inauguration Day. Regardless of your political affiliation, it should trouble us as Americans that Washington DC looks more today like Kabul, then that shining city on a hill Reagan spoke of.
2020 has been devastating on many, many levels…and 2021 has started pretty damn rocky. In the last year we faced a pandemic – 400,000 Americans dead – and a divisive election, made all the more so by network media and social media distorting facts, truth, and calling the other side enemy. Now, everyone with a navel can broadcast an opinion and claim “facts.” A whole segment of the population gets their news and “facts” through social media which, is to say, not news and not fact. The definition of a fact is actuality – the empirical truth about events as opposed to interpretation. All else is opinion.
Dwight D. Eisenhower said it best: “The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.” So looking at what has transpired after the election and on January 6th, we need a restart. A reboot. How? A simple two-prong suggestion: 1) Delete all social media that isn’t traveling, dogs (and maybe cats and horses, yes, definitely horses), recipes, books, family, and fun; and 2) Because there is no such thing as true journalism these days, limit news to 30 minutes a day and force yourself to read or watch a mixture of news channels, some you ordinarily would not endorse because it doesn’t enforce your own beliefs. In other words, stop listening to the echoes and start listening to one another. You will not agree with the other, but you may learn to understand the other and perhaps, just maybe, meet the other part of the way.
If you reject compromise, if you only believe in the dogma of the left or the right, a better America will elude us. In the meantime, stay safe, hang in there, and breathe deep. To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, when you reach the end of the rope, hang on.
Ethiopian Dam Fills and Egypt Threatens a Water War
Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam was the subject of THREATENED WATERS: Reality Sets In on the Nile
BBC recently published a series of excellent articles on the Nile River controversy which has threatened water wars for the past ten years. Ethiopia, backed by Chinese investment, has damned the Nile with the avowed goal of becoming the hydropower provider to Northeast Africa. You can read the BBC here (or buy Threatened Waters and live the controversy vicariously).
Pandemics and Water Part 2: Migration
This Washington Post article (Escaping the Virus) seems to support Pandemics and Water Part 1, a post I made March 19th. Those with means in urban areas are rethinking where they need to perform business. Will this result in a migration out of cities, a form of #economic-distancing?
Click here to see the article
And if you missed the blog post Pandemics and Water Part 1 click here
Isolation Does Not Mean Isolated
Working from home, alone, is nothing new to authors. These past days, while incredibly stressful to others, is just more of the same isolated existence an author, artist, craftsman (crafts-person?), and many others embrace. But being in isolation or lock-down does not have to mean feeling isolated. In the past week, dozens of people I have not heard from in months or even years have reached out online. That not only feels good, it is good. Let’s hope that sort of connectivity continues when all this is over. It is but one of the positives that might come out of this dreadful virus.
Turn the TV off, turn off the news feed. It isn’t healthy constantly listening to the news of the virus, becoming upset as both the Democrats and Republicans continue their partisan bickering, or becoming frustrated at how ineffective the federal government is in this time of crisis. Since we apparently do not have much leadership at any level, lead yourself through this. Reach out and connect with others, see what others may need, how they feel, what you can do. Something very surprising may come come from all this. We might find that we welcome isolating ourselves from negative news, negative people, identify the more important things in life, and put more balance back in our lives.
Pandemics and Water
Freshwater has always been the driving force behind settlements and urbanization. In most instances, settlements centered around rivers and available water sources. The Industrial Revolution transformed the agrarian economy into an urban one with populations migrating toward cities. As cities became more densely populated, sewage disposal was little more than discharge to cesspools, land application and rivers. The proximity of sewage discharges to water collection sources gave rise to waterborne disease and pandemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. So, the limited availability of freshwater and sewage disposal limited urbanization.
The result was that centralized delivery systems for drinking water and centralized collection and treatment of sewage rose in the 19th century giving rise to the large urban areas we see today. Economic successes resulted. Now we see another limitation to urbanization which has its roots in the globalization of these urban centers.
Epidemics and pandemics are nothing new. What may be knew is the speed by which pandemics impact the globe and the frequency of their occurrence. In the less than twenty the world has faced the SARS Epidemic (2002) with 744 fatalities, the H1N1 (Avian flu) Epidemic (2009) with 18,000 fatalities, the MERS Epidemic (2012) with 400 fatalities, the Ebola Epidemic (2013-2016) with over 11,300 fatalities, and now the Covid-19 Pandemic which threatens to exceed all of these. Of course, the Covid-19 Pandemic so far is overshadowed by the AIDS Pandemic that took over 30 million lives and the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu Pandemic that killed 100 million (at a time when the world’s population was only 1.79 billion, Contrast that with today’s world population of 7.8 billion – or 435 million deaths in today’s numbers).
So, the question I put out there is whether social distancing and the economic effect of a global pandemics will trigger a reversal of land use patterns toward decreasing densities? Business and insurance is dictated by risk – the probability or threat of something happening multiplied by the resulting cost or benefit if it does. Will industries and corporations weigh the risk and decide to move operations to less densely populated areas; a form of economic distancing. Water and sewer can always be developed at any locale. It is what we water lawyers and water planners do. What will industry do?