Water and Climate Issues

It seems like we have a knack for lining up travel with unusual and unseasonal heat waves, which are of course just becoming more and more common around the world. We experienced this in Utah a few years back, in Croatia and Slovenia last summer, in Egypt last week and now in northern Morocco. We are also acutely aware of how important water is and how tricky water politics are! This past year, I (Miriam) led a book discussion at church on the book "Where the Water Goes" about the Colorado River, which starts almost in our backyard. It is impossible to ignore the news of the dwindling water in the river and reservoirs/lakes along its route and how this will bring dire consequences in the coming years. So, already water issues are on the front of our minds.

Last week in Egypt, we learned about how the Nile is flowing at nearly a third of the capacity it used to and people are becoming quite fearful of the future flow and its impact on the booming population in Cairo both in terms of water needs and the hydro-electric power created from the Aswan Dam. Several years ago, Ethiopia began building a dam on the Blue Nile (where most of the water originates that flows into Egypt). The Egyptian government was concerned about the dam and its impact on water levels (both for water and electricity) lower in Egypt. They were ok with the Dam in general, but wanted to have some ability to have conversation with the government of Ethiopia about how much water they would retain and how quickly they would fill the reservoir created by the dam (3 versus 7 years). They asked the UN to mediate conversations and the UN declined saying they can't do anything until there is actually a conflict. This seemed so similar to the Colorado River conversations between western US states (and Mexico) over the last year and the US government's response. Of course, when I said that, our guide had no awareness of that....which just makes me wonder how many places this is happening, affecting vast local/regional populations, but getting no news time outside that area.

Here in Chefchaouen this morning, we learned that there are two natural springs from the Rif mountains that create a river that flows south in Morocco and the flow is at just half of what is "normal". He said that we are in the "rainy season" until the end of May and it should be cold and rainy or even snowy now up in these mountains....instead, it hasn't rained since December and we hit nearly 100 degrees today with bright, scorching sun. This is a good reminder, just a few days after Earth Day, that we share this planet no matter which country we call our home or which language we speak, and the future is scary if we keep on this trajectory.