The Middle East is running out of water, and parts of it are becoming uninhabitable

[dalton99a]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/22/middleeast/middle-east-climate-water-shortage-iran-urmia-intl/index.html

The Middle East is running out of water, and parts of it are becoming uninhabitable
By Frederik Pleitgen, Claudia Otto, Angela Dewan and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN
Updated 12:08 AM ET, Sun August 22, 2021

Lake Urmia, Iran (CNN) The ferries that once shuttled tourists to and from the little islets in Iran's Lake Urmia sit rusty, unable to move, on what is rapidly becoming a salt plain. Just two decades ago, Urmia was the Middle East's biggest lake, its local economy a thriving tourist center of hotels and restaurants.

"People would come here for swimming and would use the mud for therapeutic purposes. They would stay here at least for a few days," said Ahad Ahmed, a journalist in the former port town of Sharafkhaneh as he showed CNN photos of people enjoying the lake in 1995.

Lake Urmia's demise has been fast. It has more than halved in size -- from 5,400 square kilometers (2,085 square miles) in the 1990s to just 2,500 square kilometers (965 square miles) today -- according to the Department of Environmental Protection of West Azerbaijan, one of the Iranian provinces where the lake is located. There are now concerns it will disappear entirely.

Such problems are familiar in many parts of the Middle East -- where water is simply running out.

[wryter2000]

1. Can California be far behind? n/t

[jimfields33]

2. Going to be a problem for California

I think they need to go full desalination immediately. I know it’s costly but….

[NickB79]

6. Desal can't replace enough for agriculture

California's ago sector is going to collapse.

[Moebym]

3. Water is life, quite literally

This is a serious climate, humanitarian and national security emergency that is not being talked about nearly enough.

[PortTack]

4. Oh indeed! Those fools in the AZ senate fiddle while the state burns! Water cut backs coming in '22.

[marie999]

5. The world as a whole will not do anything meaningful to slow down climate change.

We have reached the point that the only thing that will work is a major decline in the world's population.

[Probatim]

7. And what great fun that will be.

Every dystopian nightmare will be a reality.

[BlueWavePsych]

8. Say goodbye to Dubai ...

I'm a poet and I didn't even know it

[Collimator]

9. About 12 years ago, I worked at a call center. . .

One standard behavior that I observed was my younger co-workers throwing half-full bottles of purchased water into the trash cans rather than using the contents to water a nearby plant. (Never mind the plastic in the trash issue.) In the women's locker room of the in-building gym, I would watch co-workers turn on a shower to heat up the water and let it run a good five minutes while they wandered around gathering their toiletries and towels.

This used to make me crazy, but I knew that no one really cared about the opinions of one older co-worker. The most that I could do was take the water bottles out of the trash and use the contents to water my plants at home. Every once in awhile, if the conversation could be led that way, I would mention articles that I had read warning about water shortages in the future. "Thirty years from now, we won't be going to war for oil," I would say," we'll be going to war over water."

But, hey, I was a weirdo who read National Geographic on her breaks instead of gossiping in the break room. And now, I'm an official senior citizen who takes grim comfort in knowing that I may be gone before things get truly ugly. (Not that there isn't enough ugliness to go around right now.)