I wonder how the current drought in Iran factors into this. While the direct impact to city dwellers may be minimal (lowered water pressure and other water saving strategies), I’ve read that roughly 45% of the country’s villages have been abandoned with their inhabitants becoming urban refugees. That affects the quality of life for the urbanites who are protesting.
It also presents a massive problem for whoever rules Iran in the future, regardless of whether it’s the clerics, the military, or some reconstitution of the Peacock Throne. The drought itself is something that is in the hands of Allah, but the government’s water management policies intended to make the country self-sustaining agriculturally have compounded it.
A lack of political freedom may generate unrest, but a lack of water is a threat to life itself.
Thanks Mark, an excellent question, esp. in light of the impact of drought/ water scarcity in other countries in the region on conflict. As you probably know there have, for example, been studies linking water stress (and its impact on farming and migration) to the Syrian uprising in 2011. I know water scarcity and mismanagement in Iran is a significant problem, but this is a good topic for a follow-on. And then there's the Egypt-Ethiopia conflict over the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is driving high-level tensions across the Western shore of the Red Sea, and at least indirectly a factor in Iran's regional strategy.
Based on Mark’s insight and your reply to it, I think, on a larger level, how much climate change is looming as great a factor as economic instability in these regional unrests, and how intertwined they are becoming the more that efforts to deal with climate change keep getting stymied. We have solutions and measures, but still a paucity of imagination and will in seeing the connections.
Yes it’s amazing how short sighted or wishful, or worse many people (and governments) are. I imagine there was once an evolutionary benefit to myopia, but it’s certainly not helping now.
What it seems to me has to happen is that, if indeed the water conduit and supply issues are as grave as they are, this might have to be addressed equally with the economic issues. Is there any actor there that has either this insight or capability?
There appears to be an emerging divide between the rural and urban areas that authoritarian types will be counted on to exploit. Not good for that country or that region.
Eco-Peace is a good example of a mulilateral NGO that is working to help align economic and environmental interests in Jordan/Israel/Palestine: https://ecopeaceme.org/
I wonder how the current drought in Iran factors into this. While the direct impact to city dwellers may be minimal (lowered water pressure and other water saving strategies), I’ve read that roughly 45% of the country’s villages have been abandoned with their inhabitants becoming urban refugees. That affects the quality of life for the urbanites who are protesting.
It also presents a massive problem for whoever rules Iran in the future, regardless of whether it’s the clerics, the military, or some reconstitution of the Peacock Throne. The drought itself is something that is in the hands of Allah, but the government’s water management policies intended to make the country self-sustaining agriculturally have compounded it.
A lack of political freedom may generate unrest, but a lack of water is a threat to life itself.
Thanks Mark, an excellent question, esp. in light of the impact of drought/ water scarcity in other countries in the region on conflict. As you probably know there have, for example, been studies linking water stress (and its impact on farming and migration) to the Syrian uprising in 2011. I know water scarcity and mismanagement in Iran is a significant problem, but this is a good topic for a follow-on. And then there's the Egypt-Ethiopia conflict over the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is driving high-level tensions across the Western shore of the Red Sea, and at least indirectly a factor in Iran's regional strategy.
Based on Mark’s insight and your reply to it, I think, on a larger level, how much climate change is looming as great a factor as economic instability in these regional unrests, and how intertwined they are becoming the more that efforts to deal with climate change keep getting stymied. We have solutions and measures, but still a paucity of imagination and will in seeing the connections.
Yes it’s amazing how short sighted or wishful, or worse many people (and governments) are. I imagine there was once an evolutionary benefit to myopia, but it’s certainly not helping now.
What it seems to me has to happen is that, if indeed the water conduit and supply issues are as grave as they are, this might have to be addressed equally with the economic issues. Is there any actor there that has either this insight or capability?
There appears to be an emerging divide between the rural and urban areas that authoritarian types will be counted on to exploit. Not good for that country or that region.
Eco-Peace is a good example of a mulilateral NGO that is working to help align economic and environmental interests in Jordan/Israel/Palestine: https://ecopeaceme.org/