<
https://theconversation.com/drought-sand-storms-and-evacuations-how-irans-climate-crisis-gets-ignored-266725>
"Iran and Israel fought a 12-day war in June. Although a ceasefire was declared
the same month, news coverage of Iran continues to focus on the conflict’s
aftermath and the Middle East’s tense political situation.
Meanwhile, Tehran – home to more than 10 million people – is facing one of its
worst water shortages in decades. Dams near the capital are at their lowest
levels for nearly 70 years – the Karaj dam (one of the city’s major suppliers),
which has 25 million cubic metres of water storage, is 86% empty.
In the centre of the country, the city of Isfahan is sinking as subsidence
swallows cars and pedestrians. Land subsidence is mainly caused by
over-extraction of ground water for agriculture – more than 90% of Iran’s water
is extracted for agricultural use. Many of Iran’s iconic lakes have turned into
a bed of salt.
Even though schools and roads in Tehran were evacuated in September due to
their risk of collapsing, international media coverage of this major
environmental problem remains alarmingly low – limited mostly to local and
Persian-language diaspora outlets.
Earlier this year, the country’s southern provinces were blanketed by sand and
dust storms that sent thousands to hospitals and disrupted infrastructure.
Again, this went mostly unreported outside Iran.
There has also been little international coverage of the environmental impact
of the war on Iran.
In contrast, local media have reported that Israel’s missile attacks on oil
depots close to Tehran released 47,000 tons of greenhouse gases into the city’s
atmosphere, causing air pollution. They claimed surface and groundwater
systems, soil and wider ecosystems have all been damaged by the leakage of
industrial wastewater, urban sewage and other forms of pollution including
noise, vibration, radiation and heat – all of which pose a threat to the lives
of humans, animals and plants."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
