9 ms·

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

97 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

inglor_cz 5y ago
It is not running out of population, though. Actually, to the contrary, most Middle Eastern populations are still growing. (For example, birth rate for Iraq was 28.1 per 1,000.) I expect the eastern Turkish borders to become a mass migration flashpoint, with possible EU investments, too.
- rnd0 5y ago
  That just means that the habitable parts will become increasingly denser and -as you pointed out, people will be migrating away.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    "people will be migrating away" If just 5 per cent of contemporary Middle Eastern population moves to the EU, liberalism here is going to be toast. Together with the welfare states that Americans so admire.
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      Two things. First, your argument makes no sense even if we make the most grossly uncharitable assumptions about the sentiments of middle eastern immigrants. 5% of the middle east is only about 12 million people, and presumably not even 100% of those people are going to end up Europe. Even if every single one of those people had illiberal sentiments, they wouldn't make a dent on the electorate (and, as immigrants new to the region and therefore without strong historical/institutional inertia, would have a hard-to-impossible time effectuating change via extra-legal avenues). Second, Immigrants aren't selected uniformly from the underlying population; they largely self-select. At least in the USA, the average Iranian immigrant is far more friendly to democracy, the rule of law, and secular government than the average white conservative. The greatest threat to liberalism in Germany is AfD, etc.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Iranians are generally easy to integrate anywhere, as they usually are university-educated people who do not want to live in the oppressive political climate of the Islamic Republic. Iran suffers one of the worst brain drains worldwide. This cannot be generalized to the entire Middle East, though. Environmental or military disasters result in very different migration patterns than political oppression in an otherwise stable country. "those that manage immigration well" The keyword is well. For contemporary Western societies, highly educated, secular migrants cause the least friction. So Hong Kong inhabitants fleeing China are likely to be welcome everywhere. That does not apply as much to inhabitants of Mirpur, Pakistan.
    - tluyben2 5y ago
      We need immigration; the way it is done is the question. I was raised in a very mixed society and always had and have good friends of all sides but those were all 2nd+ generation immigrants if from Africa, Middle East, China. Never saw the difference with myself and they for many things did not either. But a first gen I can understand is very delicate, but we do need them... so better find a way. My roommate at uni was an Iranian girl studying law and she was very smart and nice and very western; one day she went away visited her family in Iran and after a while the landlord called where the rent was. Never heard of her again... there is that...
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Every society has an absorption capacity. For Germany, absorbing 1000 random people yearly is an easy task. A million that came in 2015 was already quite a challenge. Ten million coming in a year would overwhelm even Germany. (But that is a theoretical scenario; in practice, they wouldn't get there, because Germany is pretty far from the Middle East and the border countries like Greece, Turkey and Italy would sink into complete chaos if tens of millions really came.)
        tluyben2 5y ago
        Agreed, but we need a certain influx we can handle and we should handle. More is... a problem. And a problem we need to solve as a world. Most of this is very complicated and geopolitical going back a long time. We are just trying to put out the fires (and without water, literally in this case).
        joelbluminator 5y ago
        Who says if and how many "we" need? No one seems to be asking the actual people living there (e.g European), it's all arbitrary decisions made by Germany or some E.U council. Last time we actually asked the people in a referendum what they want (Brexit) we were all surprised. Let's not assume we know what the majority wants.
        5y ago
- tsjq 5y ago
  >It is not running out of population, though. that's an intriguing point, indeed. not only in this context, but also in any context . eg. extreme poverty? doesn't matter, population increases. extreme unemployment? doesn't matter, population increases. extreme climate change effects? doesn't matter, population increases. extreme violence/wars ? doesn't matter, population increases. population just keeps increasing, man! people aren't reducing their copulation.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Seems like we’ve got a big fucking problem.
  - ggvcxxd 5y ago
    Not going to talk about the dominant ideology (religion) at all?
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Women gaining financial independence, education, and access to cheap and convenient contraceptives? Population decreases. And I would bet copulation, for at least some portion of men, decreases.
- kace91 5y ago
  >I expect the eastern Turkish borders to become a mass migration flashpoint, with possible EU investments, too. That's been the EU's dirty laundry for years already. Plenty of groups here complain about it.
- eat_veggies 5y ago
  the malthusian obsession with population growth and birth rates in the middle east, and xenophobic comments about immigration in this thread are truly disgusting.
  - wisethrowaway 5y ago
    In 2015 2 million of excess population arrived with nothing to Europe. We had to feed them, give them housing, etc. I think it's natural to worry about what comes next! "truly disgusting!" mindset
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    To be fair, population growth and birth rates in Subsaharan Africa are even higher. Let us just be nice and pretend that there can be no negative consequences to massive population growth in arid areas.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    Inconvenient problems still require discussion and solutions.
  - benque 5y ago
    If any given area produces more people than they can handle, then it should be their problem. The dominant ideology in middle east is religious authoritarianism. If you're a liberal democracy, then its a self goal to get immigrants from there.
    - geraneum 5y ago
      Well, a couple of these liberal democracies helped establishing some of the modern day religious fundamentalism in Middle East and have been part of the problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
      - benque 5y ago
- whoisthemachine 5y ago
  It is interesting (but maybe not surprising) that greater adversity seems to increase birth-rate. Meanwhile, some European countries are experiencing declining birth rates [0], so maybe some balance will be found? [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=EU https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It is women lacking financial independence and access to convenient contraception (such as IUDs and birth control pills), hence being subjected to unwanted pregnancies. In the vast, vast majority of cases.
    - whoisthemachine 5y ago
      That definitely makes sense as a major contribution!
dogma1138 5y ago
Most of the Middle East has easy access to salt water and plenty of sunshine for low or zero emission desalination.
- anonu 5y ago
  Agreed. The Middle East spans 15+ countries, 5 timezones and has a population of 300m+ .... so saying the "middle east" is running out of water definitely lacks specificity
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  A lot of exceptions apply. Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, is located at an altitude of 2,250 meters (approx. 7 thousand feet). It has almost three million people. Pumping required amounts of water from sea level to such heights is quite a challenge. Tehran is at 1200 meters. Tabriz, 1350 meters. Mashhad, 1000 meters altitude and far from the sea.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    Tehran is quite close to the Caspian Sea, Tabriz is close to Lake Urmia which while it’s shrinking is a huge salt water lake. Sana’a is indeed more problematic but if pumping water isn’t feasible the pumping people closer to coast is.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Lake Urmia is enormously salty. Over 20 % of its water is salt. Can contemporary technology even desalinate such brine efficiently? It is, after all, tailored to normal seawater with its 4 per cent salt content.
      - mcny 5y ago
        I don't know anything about desalination but from what I've seen on YouTube, desalination does not result in clean water and powder table salt. It results in water and very salty water. What do we do with this very salty water? Apparently, it isn't safe to just dump it into the water source...
azerous 5y ago
Doosan I&C, a Korean heavy industry company, sells both nuclear power plants and desalination plants. Countries only need to pay money.
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  Well a lot of those countries don't have money. Lebanon is pretty much bankrupt for example. Iran is close to that. Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Sudan, many many super fragile countries. It's not that the problem isn't technically solvable, it is, but many of these countries are on the verge of social and economic collapse.
  - User23 5y ago
    You mean they’re on the verge of joining the eventual Sino-Russian common market. Edit: I suppose we’ll see if predictions of Iran’s imminent social and economic collapse are any more true now than they have been for the past 42 years. Too bad we can’t put a few dollars on it. I trust the Lindy effect more than some NGO’s social science model.
    - joelbluminator 5y ago
      No, I mean they are on the verge of civil and economic collapse. https://themedialine.org/top-stories/irans-economy-is-closer-than-ever-to-collapse-says-expert/ https://themedialine.org/top-stories/irans-economy-is-closer... https://www.ft.com/content/8c6b9992-17be-45f4-9a87-f6ee524dc7d8 https://www.ft.com/content/8c6b9992-17be-45f4-9a87-f6ee524dc... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/world/lebanon-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/world/lebanon-crisis.html etc etc. This is a pretty good visualization of the fragility of the area https://fragilestatesindex.org/ https://fragilestatesindex.org/
      - da_big_ghey 5y ago
        Yes and also, this make nuclear not so responsible. In western nation nuclear are great for making electricity but cannot have so safely in unstable regime.
tsjq 5y ago
they have a ton load of oil money: make good water from sea water. and next: how about Rain water harvesting ?
tsjq 5y ago
kudos OP for the lite.cnn link . sweet.
- jptech 5y ago
  But the video is not shown.
pram 5y ago
There is also stuff like Saudi farms using non-renewable fossil water for crop irrigation, which seems insane.
- b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago
  Interesting, have not heard that term before. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_water
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Here’s a bunch in egypt. If you scroll in more, you get a more recent photo showing even more. Of course you build these near the border so you’re draining someone else’s water too. Zoom out. https://goo.gl/maps/ufQFRKi2xiGPnB9b9 https://goo.gl/maps/ufQFRKi2xiGPnB9b9 And a bunch in Saudi Arabia: https://goo.gl/maps/eDUog8FP6EpXMmj58 https://goo.gl/maps/eDUog8FP6EpXMmj58
wisethrowaway 5y ago
Afghan population has increased from 9 million in 1960 to 40 now, but it's not raining any more.
- mcny 5y ago
  The last time I checked afghanistan had an infant mortality rate of over one hundred. That's a hundred babies dying per thousand live births before the age of five I think. I know once you get infant mortality rate down to about five, the last five is very difficult to make go away but a hundred? That is such unnecessary pain and suffering that should be relatively easy to reduce.
  - luckylion 5y ago
    Not sure when you checked, but it's been steadily sinking and is under 50 now, and there's no reason to believe it won't continue that way (it fell even under the Taliban). I'm not sure they'll get to Western levels, but they're closing the gap.
    - mcny 5y ago
      Thank you. Seems like I had just really poor search skills. I somehow reached here https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit... which I guess has not been updated since the early nineties? https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit... archived at https://archive.fo/v3bco https://archive.fo/v3bco Thank you for the correction. This is great news (to me)!
Havoc 5y ago
Agriculture in a desert is insane anyway.
- nradov 5y ago
  What's the alternative other than mass starvation?
  - Havoc 5y ago
    Grow the crops somewhere less insane and put them on a ship. Also not ideal but a bit more sustainable than draining aquifers
    - nradov 5y ago
      No large country is going to voluntarily give up on food security and make themselves vulnerable to a supply disruption.
hourislate 5y ago
Scientists have been predicting Climate Change/Global Warming for the last decade +. I'm not smart enough to predict the future but a lot of smart folks already have. Without some kind of break through change, water scarcity will drive regional wars and the greatest human migration the world has ever seen. I suspect the day will come when those Oil tankers that carried oil could possibly carry 10's of 1000's of desperate people crashing on the shores of distance countries daily. We here in NA are not safe from the affects of this climate change since it's also happening in our back yard. There are millions of people leaving south and central America trying to reach the Land of Milk and Honey. We will be over run with 10's of millions in the coming decades if things don't change. I wish water was as interesting as space so some billionaire would take up the challenge of figuring out how to efficiently desalinate the ocean waters and solve one the greatest challenges facing billions of people around the world....
volandovengo 5y ago
This lite.cnn site is awesome! Text without ads & trackers that bloat the cnn.com site.
- tpmx 5y ago
  It would do well with a tiny amount of additional CSS to make it work well on large screens, but I guess they don't want to make it too nice to use for that segment.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    IIRC, this site was put together, in particular, for low-bandwidth users (like mobile phone users back in the feature phone day) where every byte cost. CSS would be an unnecessary and potentially expensive addition for those users.
    - enlyth 5y ago
      The website already serves a 496 byte CSS file (359 minified, even less gzipped), addition of a max-width to make it readable on large screens wouldn't make a difference.
    - tpmx 5y ago
      It's not optimized to that level. There's 1.1k of inline tracking javascript. And a reference to an external stylesheet for the styling, along with a bunch of wastefully long hex identifiers.
    - primeradical 5y ago
      Took a look at the dev console, there are 2 tracking scripts, segment and CNN specific one. Those take up the majority of bandwidth. There's also a separate CSS style sheet. The main DOM and the stylesheet are <10% of the total bytes transferred. The favicon is the same byte size as the entire DOM. Don't think there is necessarily a consideration of byte cost, given the size of the tracking scripts. A few lines to make this manageable on wide monitors aren't prohibitive for those users.
h2odragon 5y ago
Obvious smart ass remark: Isn't that pretty much what the area is known for?
morpheos137 5y ago
Most of the land area of the middle east has always been uninhabitable or marginally inhabitable for the duration of human civilization. Fortunately global warming should increase evaporation and rainfall. The driest periods are always ice ages.

97 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

It is not running out of population, though. Actually, to the contrary, most Middle Eastern populations are still growing. (For example, birth rate for Iraq was 28.1 per 1,000.) I expect the eastern Turkish borders to become a mass migration flashpoint, with possible EU investments, too.

rnd0 5y ago
That just means that the habitable parts will become increasingly denser and -as you pointed out, people will be migrating away.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  "people will be migrating away" If just 5 per cent of contemporary Middle Eastern population moves to the EU, liberalism here is going to be toast. Together with the welfare states that Americans so admire.
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    Two things. First, your argument makes no sense even if we make the most grossly uncharitable assumptions about the sentiments of middle eastern immigrants. 5% of the middle east is only about 12 million people, and presumably not even 100% of those people are going to end up Europe. Even if every single one of those people had illiberal sentiments, they wouldn't make a dent on the electorate (and, as immigrants new to the region and therefore without strong historical/institutional inertia, would have a hard-to-impossible time effectuating change via extra-legal avenues). Second, Immigrants aren't selected uniformly from the underlying population; they largely self-select. At least in the USA, the average Iranian immigrant is far more friendly to democracy, the rule of law, and secular government than the average white conservative. The greatest threat to liberalism in Germany is AfD, etc.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Iranians are generally easy to integrate anywhere, as they usually are university-educated people who do not want to live in the oppressive political climate of the Islamic Republic. Iran suffers one of the worst brain drains worldwide. This cannot be generalized to the entire Middle East, though. Environmental or military disasters result in very different migration patterns than political oppression in an otherwise stable country. "those that manage immigration well" The keyword is well. For contemporary Western societies, highly educated, secular migrants cause the least friction. So Hong Kong inhabitants fleeing China are likely to be welcome everywhere. That does not apply as much to inhabitants of Mirpur, Pakistan.
  - tluyben2 5y ago
    We need immigration; the way it is done is the question. I was raised in a very mixed society and always had and have good friends of all sides but those were all 2nd+ generation immigrants if from Africa, Middle East, China. Never saw the difference with myself and they for many things did not either. But a first gen I can understand is very delicate, but we do need them... so better find a way. My roommate at uni was an Iranian girl studying law and she was very smart and nice and very western; one day she went away visited her family in Iran and after a while the landlord called where the rent was. Never heard of her again... there is that...
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Every society has an absorption capacity. For Germany, absorbing 1000 random people yearly is an easy task. A million that came in 2015 was already quite a challenge. Ten million coming in a year would overwhelm even Germany. (But that is a theoretical scenario; in practice, they wouldn't get there, because Germany is pretty far from the Middle East and the border countries like Greece, Turkey and Italy would sink into complete chaos if tens of millions really came.)
      - tluyben2 5y ago
        Agreed, but we need a certain influx we can handle and we should handle. More is... a problem. And a problem we need to solve as a world. Most of this is very complicated and geopolitical going back a long time. We are just trying to put out the fires (and without water, literally in this case).
        joelbluminator 5y ago
        Who says if and how many "we" need? No one seems to be asking the actual people living there (e.g European), it's all arbitrary decisions made by Germany or some E.U council. Last time we actually asked the people in a referendum what they want (Brexit) we were all surprised. Let's not assume we know what the majority wants.
        5y ago
tsjq 5y ago
>It is not running out of population, though. that's an intriguing point, indeed. not only in this context, but also in any context . eg. extreme poverty? doesn't matter, population increases. extreme unemployment? doesn't matter, population increases. extreme climate change effects? doesn't matter, population increases. extreme violence/wars ? doesn't matter, population increases. population just keeps increasing, man! people aren't reducing their copulation.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Seems like we’ve got a big fucking problem.
- ggvcxxd 5y ago
  Not going to talk about the dominant ideology (religion) at all?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Women gaining financial independence, education, and access to cheap and convenient contraceptives? Population decreases. And I would bet copulation, for at least some portion of men, decreases.
kace91 5y ago
>I expect the eastern Turkish borders to become a mass migration flashpoint, with possible EU investments, too. That's been the EU's dirty laundry for years already. Plenty of groups here complain about it.
eat_veggies 5y ago
the malthusian obsession with population growth and birth rates in the middle east, and xenophobic comments about immigration in this thread are truly disgusting.
- wisethrowaway 5y ago
  In 2015 2 million of excess population arrived with nothing to Europe. We had to feed them, give them housing, etc. I think it's natural to worry about what comes next! "truly disgusting!" mindset
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  To be fair, population growth and birth rates in Subsaharan Africa are even higher. Let us just be nice and pretend that there can be no negative consequences to massive population growth in arid areas.
- newsclues 5y ago
  Inconvenient problems still require discussion and solutions.
- benque 5y ago
  If any given area produces more people than they can handle, then it should be their problem. The dominant ideology in middle east is religious authoritarianism. If you're a liberal democracy, then its a self goal to get immigrants from there.
  - geraneum 5y ago
    Well, a couple of these liberal democracies helped establishing some of the modern day religious fundamentalism in Middle East and have been part of the problem. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
    - benque 5y ago
whoisthemachine 5y ago
It is interesting (but maybe not surprising) that greater adversity seems to increase birth-rate. Meanwhile, some European countries are experiencing declining birth rates [0], so maybe some balance will be found? [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=EU https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location...
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  It is women lacking financial independence and access to convenient contraception (such as IUDs and birth control pills), hence being subjected to unwanted pregnancies. In the vast, vast majority of cases.
  - whoisthemachine 5y ago
    That definitely makes sense as a major contribution!

dogma1138 5y ago

Most of the Middle East has easy access to salt water and plenty of sunshine for low or zero emission desalination.

anonu 5y ago
Agreed. The Middle East spans 15+ countries, 5 timezones and has a population of 300m+ .... so saying the "middle east" is running out of water definitely lacks specificity
inglor_cz 5y ago
A lot of exceptions apply. Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, is located at an altitude of 2,250 meters (approx. 7 thousand feet). It has almost three million people. Pumping required amounts of water from sea level to such heights is quite a challenge. Tehran is at 1200 meters. Tabriz, 1350 meters. Mashhad, 1000 meters altitude and far from the sea.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Tehran is quite close to the Caspian Sea, Tabriz is close to Lake Urmia which while it’s shrinking is a huge salt water lake. Sana’a is indeed more problematic but if pumping water isn’t feasible the pumping people closer to coast is.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Lake Urmia is enormously salty. Over 20 % of its water is salt. Can contemporary technology even desalinate such brine efficiently? It is, after all, tailored to normal seawater with its 4 per cent salt content.
    - mcny 5y ago
      I don't know anything about desalination but from what I've seen on YouTube, desalination does not result in clean water and powder table salt. It results in water and very salty water. What do we do with this very salty water? Apparently, it isn't safe to just dump it into the water source...

azerous 5y ago

Doosan I&C, a Korean heavy industry company, sells both nuclear power plants and desalination plants. Countries only need to pay money.

joelbluminator 5y ago
Well a lot of those countries don't have money. Lebanon is pretty much bankrupt for example. Iran is close to that. Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Sudan, many many super fragile countries. It's not that the problem isn't technically solvable, it is, but many of these countries are on the verge of social and economic collapse.
- User23 5y ago
  You mean they’re on the verge of joining the eventual Sino-Russian common market. Edit: I suppose we’ll see if predictions of Iran’s imminent social and economic collapse are any more true now than they have been for the past 42 years. Too bad we can’t put a few dollars on it. I trust the Lindy effect more than some NGO’s social science model.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    No, I mean they are on the verge of civil and economic collapse. https://themedialine.org/top-stories/irans-economy-is-closer-than-ever-to-collapse-says-expert/ https://themedialine.org/top-stories/irans-economy-is-closer... https://www.ft.com/content/8c6b9992-17be-45f4-9a87-f6ee524dc7d8 https://www.ft.com/content/8c6b9992-17be-45f4-9a87-f6ee524dc... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/world/lebanon-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/world/lebanon-crisis.html etc etc. This is a pretty good visualization of the fragility of the area https://fragilestatesindex.org/ https://fragilestatesindex.org/
    - da_big_ghey 5y ago
      Yes and also, this make nuclear not so responsible. In western nation nuclear are great for making electricity but cannot have so safely in unstable regime.

tsjq 5y ago

they have a ton load of oil money: make good water from sea water. and next: how about Rain water harvesting ?

tsjq 5y ago

kudos OP for the lite.cnn link . sweet.

jptech 5y ago
But the video is not shown.

pram 5y ago

There is also stuff like Saudi farms using non-renewable fossil water for crop irrigation, which seems insane.

b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago
Interesting, have not heard that term before. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_water
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Here’s a bunch in egypt. If you scroll in more, you get a more recent photo showing even more. Of course you build these near the border so you’re draining someone else’s water too. Zoom out. https://goo.gl/maps/ufQFRKi2xiGPnB9b9 https://goo.gl/maps/ufQFRKi2xiGPnB9b9 And a bunch in Saudi Arabia: https://goo.gl/maps/eDUog8FP6EpXMmj58 https://goo.gl/maps/eDUog8FP6EpXMmj58

wisethrowaway 5y ago

Afghan population has increased from 9 million in 1960 to 40 now, but it's not raining any more.

mcny 5y ago
The last time I checked afghanistan had an infant mortality rate of over one hundred. That's a hundred babies dying per thousand live births before the age of five I think. I know once you get infant mortality rate down to about five, the last five is very difficult to make go away but a hundred? That is such unnecessary pain and suffering that should be relatively easy to reduce.
- luckylion 5y ago
  Not sure when you checked, but it's been steadily sinking and is under 50 now, and there's no reason to believe it won't continue that way (it fell even under the Taliban). I'm not sure they'll get to Western levels, but they're closing the gap.
  - mcny 5y ago
    Thank you. Seems like I had just really poor search skills. I somehow reached here https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit... which I guess has not been updated since the early nineties? https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortality-rate/country-comparison https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/infant-mortalit... archived at https://archive.fo/v3bco https://archive.fo/v3bco Thank you for the correction. This is great news (to me)!

Havoc 5y ago

Agriculture in a desert is insane anyway.

nradov 5y ago
What's the alternative other than mass starvation?
- Havoc 5y ago
  Grow the crops somewhere less insane and put them on a ship. Also not ideal but a bit more sustainable than draining aquifers
  - nradov 5y ago
    No large country is going to voluntarily give up on food security and make themselves vulnerable to a supply disruption.

hourislate 5y ago

Scientists have been predicting Climate Change/Global Warming for the last decade +. I'm not smart enough to predict the future but a lot of smart folks already have. Without some kind of break through change, water scarcity will drive regional wars and the greatest human migration the world has ever seen. I suspect the day will come when those Oil tankers that carried oil could possibly carry 10's of 1000's of desperate people crashing on the shores of distance countries daily. We here in NA are not safe from the affects of this climate change since it's also happening in our back yard. There are millions of people leaving south and central America trying to reach the Land of Milk and Honey. We will be over run with 10's of millions in the coming decades if things don't change. I wish water was as interesting as space so some billionaire would take up the challenge of figuring out how to efficiently desalinate the ocean waters and solve one the greatest challenges facing billions of people around the world....

volandovengo 5y ago

This lite.cnn site is awesome! Text without ads & trackers that bloat the cnn.com site.

tpmx 5y ago
It would do well with a tiny amount of additional CSS to make it work well on large screens, but I guess they don't want to make it too nice to use for that segment.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  IIRC, this site was put together, in particular, for low-bandwidth users (like mobile phone users back in the feature phone day) where every byte cost. CSS would be an unnecessary and potentially expensive addition for those users.
  - enlyth 5y ago
    The website already serves a 496 byte CSS file (359 minified, even less gzipped), addition of a max-width to make it readable on large screens wouldn't make a difference.
  - tpmx 5y ago
    It's not optimized to that level. There's 1.1k of inline tracking javascript. And a reference to an external stylesheet for the styling, along with a bunch of wastefully long hex identifiers.
  - primeradical 5y ago
    Took a look at the dev console, there are 2 tracking scripts, segment and CNN specific one. Those take up the majority of bandwidth. There's also a separate CSS style sheet. The main DOM and the stylesheet are <10% of the total bytes transferred. The favicon is the same byte size as the entire DOM. Don't think there is necessarily a consideration of byte cost, given the size of the tracking scripts. A few lines to make this manageable on wide monitors aren't prohibitive for those users.

h2odragon 5y ago

Obvious smart ass remark: Isn't that pretty much what the area is known for?

morpheos137 5y ago

Most of the land area of the middle east has always been uninhabitable or marginally inhabitable for the duration of human civilization. Fortunately global warming should increase evaporation and rainfall. The driest periods are always ice ages.