Mountain Mule
Mountain Mule's JournalClimate change is turning the cradle of civilization into a grave
Carved from an ancient land once known as Mesopotamia, Iraq is home to the cradle of civilization — the expanse between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the first complex human communities emerged.
But as climate change produces extreme warming and water grows scarcer around the Middle East, the land here is drying up. Across Iraq’s south, there is a sense of an ending.
Dozens of farming villages are abandoned, but for an isolated family here and there. The intrusion of saltwater is poisoning lands that have been passed for generations from fathers to sons. The United Nations recently estimated that more than 100 square miles of farmland a year are being lost to desert.
Years of below-average rainfall have left Iraqi farmers more dependent than ever on the dwindling waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. But upstream, Turkey and Iran have dammed their own waterways in the past two years, further weakening the southern flow, so a salty current from the Persian Gulf now pushes northward and into Iraq’s rivers. The salt has reached as far as the northern edge of Basra, some 85 miles inland.
In the historic marshes, meanwhile, men are clinging to what remains of life as they knew it as their buffaloes die and their wives and children scatter across nearby cities, no longer able to stand the summer heat.
Temperatures in Iraq topped a record 125 degrees this summer with aid groups warning that drought was limiting access to food, water and electricity for 12 million people here and in neighboring Syria. With Iraq warming faster than much of the globe, this is a glimpse of the world’s future.
Washington Post
And then we wonder why there is a migrant problem!
My Trump supporting landlady just informed me that she has Covid and I feel guilty
So last night my landlady called me up and she sounded just awful. What she called about was fairly trivial but then she announced that she had been diagnosed with Covid. I was stunned. I flashed back to the last time I spoke with her before this. I had mentioned to Cula that I'd just gotten my second Covid vaccination and was feeling some mild side effects.
Cula replied that she was much older than me and in good health. She saw no need to get the vaccine and was in fact worried that some national mandate might come down forcing EVERYONE to get vaccinated. I think that such a mandate might be a good idea, but I tried to calm Cula's fears and I told her that I didn't think "they" would force her to get a vaccine against her will. I wish they would have.
I worry that given Cula's age, she may not pull through. I worry that her husband Bud who is also in his 80's and has cancer will catch Covid and his compromised immune system will fold on him.
I've been thinking and then saying it aloud that the republicans deserve to catch Covid, given how destructive the republican stance on Covid has been for our nation. Let them all die so that no one will be left to support Trump sez I. But Cula doesn't deserve the death sentence just because she's so deluded that she supports Trump. The county we live in is a real right wing stronghold and you can practically count all the Democrats who live here on the fingers of your hands. Cula's farming and ranching family have been staunch republicans from the dawn of time. I can't blame her for her Trump lawn sign when her family and friends and the community at large also support that SOB.
Cula has been beyond kind to me and her life has not been an easy one. She deserves better than this. There are many Cula's out there, I think. They have been brain washed by Fox, but inherently, they are not bad people and they don't deserve to die.
I need to be more careful about what I wish for.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Colorado Springs
Home country: Colorado
Current location: the Four Corners
Member since: Thu Dec 1, 2016, 02:27 PM
Number of posts: 1,002
