Too little or too much water is a sad result of climate change
When the Green Prophet article about road trains in Australia was posted back in April 2010, the Down Under continent looked a lot different than it does presently. After suffering one of its worst droughts in recent times, large portions on Australia’s state of Queensland is now under water; including parts of Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city.
Climate change, which many scientists attribute to be a consequence of global warming, is already wracking havoc in many parts of the world; and unfortunately, the continent of Australia is experiencing more than its share of environmental disasters, including large scale brush and forest fires which devastated large parts of New South Wales and Victoria states. Australia’s central desert region, known “fondly” by locals as the Outback has escaped both the ravages of fire and water, simply because there’s not much there to burn and virtually no water. Brisbane, which is beginning to look like the American city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, will take a long time to recover from these floods, which could become more common due to large scale weather changes.
Flash flooding near Istanbul
Here in the Middle East, large sections have also been affected by climate change, including Egypt’s Nile River delta region, in which millions of Egyptians are already being affected by drought and rising sea levels.
Turkey recently experienced some serious flash flooding which killed several people and caused considerable property damage. The combination of heavy rains and incoming tides created a situation similar to that presently happening in Queensland – especially in Brisbane.
Other regional areas affected by climate change include Cyprus, now suffering from severe drought, as well as water shortage problems in Syria, causing half a million people to flee from drought stricken zones.
Both Israel and Lebanon have had their share of disastrous forest and brush fires due to lack of adequate rainfall; with Israel suffering its worst wildfire in history on the Carmel mountain range.
Dry Middle East looks more like this
Road trains (where cars connect like one long train to save fuel) in the Middle East could work very well in countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya, all of which have large desert areas, and would result in savings of fuel by having less individual trucks on the roads.
Although the Middle East is unlikely to experience the flooding that Australia is now awash with, there are enough climate change connected ecological problems to be concerned about.
Read more on unusual weather patterns in the Middle East caused by climate change:
12 Million Egyptians to be Affected by Climate Change
Rethinking Climate Change Under the Middle East Sun
Arab World and Mediterranean Regions More Vulnerable to Climate Change
Author: Maurice Picow
Maurice Picow grew up in Oklahoma City, U.S.A., where he received a B.S. Degree in Business Administration. Following graduation, Maurice embarked on a career as a real estate broker before making the decision to move to Israel. After arriving in Israel, he came involved in the insurance agency business and later in the moving and international relocation fields. Maurice became interested in writing news and commentary articles in the late 1990’s, and now writes feature articles for the The Jerusalem Post as well as being a regular contributor to Green Prophet. He has also written a non-fiction study on Islam, a two volume adventure novel, and is completing a romance novel about a forbidden love affair. Writing topics of particular interest for Green Prophet are those dealing with global warming and climate change, as well as clean technology - particularly electric cars.
A little further from the sun? like near Mars maybe?
Scientists now say that when millions of the giant 480 foot wind turbines, are all rotating at the same time, it could send the planet spinning out control and out of it’s natural orbit. The scientists all have consensus that the effects could be slow developing or appear suddenly. What we should be all concerned about is that all of the scientists agree that there will be “some” kind of an effect and those effects “will” range from “negligible” to “unstoppable, runway, spinning of the planet and thus out of orbit. Maybe we can steer the planet with the millions of wind turbines like the GoodYear blimp and locate it a little further from the sun to mediate the effects of climate change?