http://www.fleshandstone.net/healthandsciencenews/1655.html Kathlyn Stone
(this is just snips of the article, please see the link above to read the whole article)
Climate change has also dealt a blow in Iraq and can be seen in declining water supplies. “If climate change continues, water depletion in the Mesopotamia geographic region will be changed dramatically. The marshlands will turn into desert,” said Askouri. These are the same marshes that have supported farmers and fishermen for 5,000 years.
On Blog Action Day ’09: Climate Change Flesh and Stone wishes to draw attention to the water crisis in Iraq and how climate change is adding to worries over Iraq’s future water supplies.
Recently a 14-member delegation of civic and educational leaders from Iraq was in Minnesota for a two-week visit to promote a community powered project called “Water for Peace.”
As physics professor Dr. Najm Askouri of the University of Kufa in Najaf explained at a public forum, many events have conspired to destroy Iraq’s water supply and threaten its future.
Chemicals, such as chlorine needed to kill E.coli, amoebiasis and other bacteria that travel throughout the untreated water supply and seep into ground water, are in short supply.
Scrap metals from deserted tanks and other weaponry containing radioactive uranium are routinely salvaged and recycled into pipes and other tools for transporting water.
The Euphrates and Tigris Rivers – the waters that gave birth to Mesopotamia and our civilization – have been diverted out of Iraq into the neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran and Syria. Through a series of dams, Turkey controls much of the water supply of the region.
The water infrastructure supplied by the British in the 1970s is substandard and crumbling, said Askouri.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
