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After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

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Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#201

Post by amanaplanacanal »

pjc50 wrote: post #143
stainablesteel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this same problem is one of the side effects of mining for the metals used in things like solar panels it comes at the sacrifice of many non-western countries and this conversation is never on the table it's such a shame things that could otherwise last for thousands of years will get destroyed by a few decades of mismanagement

Always interesting when people select an environmentally friendly technology that will help the transition away from destroying the environment somewhere or indeed everywhere else as the "villain" in this discussion. As if oil or coal extraction were without their controversies.

The problem is allowing the companies doing any natural resource extraction to get away with not paying the full cost of the environmental degradation they cause.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#202

Post by stevenwoo »

breppp wrote: post #100
timcobb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What simple solution are you referring to? Depopulating Tehran?

As far I remember a large reason for the water crisis is subsidizing water for agriculture which does not fit the local climate This is based on some ideological pillar of being autarkic, as the Islamic Republic was generally built upon the fear of outside influence sounds like if 90% of their water goes to agriculture, mostly export, and their country is cash strapped due to their habit of kidnappings, then maybe th…

The USA has several regions that appear to be headed in the same direction because of some ancient laws about water rights; bureaucracies motivated by have budget/must use for only development of water resources; developers who benefit from government projects exploiting water resources (most egregiously the farming land and urban development in deserts in Southern California, and Arizona) - all under the guise of democracy documented in Cadillac Desert.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#203

Post by amanaplanacanal »

dredmorbius wrote: post #98
closewith wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that Brazil is a Western country.

NB: "West" is less a term of hemispheric fidelity (Australia and New Zealand are typically seen as "western" countries, despite being in the eastern hemisphere), than it is of cultural derivation (on which Brazil has additional claims, via Portugal), and far more prominently, geopolitical and industrial significance , focusing on the industrial, colonial, and financial powers of the world, largely the US, western Eur…

"Rich countries" might be a better shorthand term.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#204

Post by therobots927 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #194
therobots927 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a country with vastly superior resources intervenes in the affairs of a country with less, then it tips the scales in an unnatural way. Do they depend on greedy, self interested members of Iranian society to succeed? Of course. But that doesn’t excuse western behavior at all.

My point is that western behavior has really nothing to do with Iran going on a foolish dam building spree, or over pumping in a foolish attempt to grow water hungry crops in arid mountain plateaus.

Kind of like how the US built Phoenix and LA in the middle of the desert, and allows farming in the desert as well, setting the stage for a near term water crisis in the region when the Rocky Mountain snow melt gets cut in half?

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#205

Post by flykespice »

nazgul17 wrote: post #92

The RealLifeLore YouTube channel published a video about this not long ago: https://youtu.be/n8kSGH4I8Ps

Recently, RealLifeLore has been my to go channel to watch the current state of geopolitics thorough the world, I discovered them through the video of "How Rwanda is Conquering Their 100x Larger Neighbor" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N34UFbWpFk)

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#206

Post by ch4s3 »

therobots927 wrote: post #189
ch4s3 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of a bad and inaccurate summary of a much more complicated situation. Mossadegh was trying to dissolve parliament and was in conflict with the Shah before the British got involved. The Shah was already planning to try by constitutional means (which he had legal power to do) to remove Mossadegh. Would he have done it without British and US backing, is a debate for historians.

I don’t think any serious post WWII historians would agree with you. There was a concentrated effort by the UK and US to displace Mossadegh, who was democratically elected by the way. At the very least it disproves your unspoken assertion that the Iranians are primarily to blame for their problems when it’s been proven that the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet were actively destabilizing their societ…

Mossadegh was elected but was also illegally trying to dissolve parliament.

>at the very least it disproves your unspoken assertion that the Iranians are primarily to blame for their problems

I'm very clearly stating that the Shah in particular was highly likely to have removed Mossadegh either way due to a multi-decade power struggle between the Pahlavi dynasty and the parliament /prime minister. The Majlis as a rival power center was largely a result of the Anglo-Soviet invasion which deposed Reza Shah, prior to that the Majlis had functioned in more of an advisory capacity, and Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was always lookign for ways to push back against the Majlis.

It is also important to note that the constitution in place in the early 1950s gave the power to appoint and remove the prime minister to the shah, Mossadegh was recommended to the shah by the Majlis who appointed him prime minister. That is factually how the government worked. It is also important to note that in 1952 Mossadegh stopped the counting of an election that it looked like he was going to lose. In 1953 Mossadegh organized a referendum to dissolve the parliament and vest sole power in the prime minister. This gave the shah the excuse he needed to remove Mossadegh and triggered Anglo-American support for the Shah and Iranian army to remove Mossadegh.

The CIA certainly helped the Shah get generals on side and plan the coup, this is not in dispute. However the idea that Mossadegh was democratically elected is not really true, and the idea that the coup was entirely carried out for external reasons is entirely false.

Ray Takeyh a professor of Near East studies who wrote The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty (Yale University Press, 2021) holds the position that the coup was internally driven. We also know from declassified document that the CIA thought the coup had failed and that their part was rather insignificant, but Iranian on the ground under their own direction carried out the coup.[1]

[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20150603235034/https://www.forei...

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#207

Post by amanaplanacanal »

krige wrote: post #18
Someone wrote: post #12

> However, unpublished national observations revealed groundwater depletion in some plains from as early as the 1950s. This coincided with the gradual replacement of Persian qanats, which were sustainable groundwater extraction systems and UNESCO World Cultural Heritage sites9, with (semi)deep wells. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/irn/ira... says Iran’s population today is over five times that o…

The article does say that a number of qanats was overdrawn. But it also says several other things, pointing to poor water management policies, extreme damification drying up wetlands downstream, lack of necessary maintenance on some qanats, and more.

It seems universal that it is easier to drill more wells than to tell people to use less water.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#208

Post by ch4s3 »

therobots927 wrote: post #204
ch4s3 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that western behavior has really nothing to do with Iran going on a foolish dam building spree, or over pumping in a foolish attempt to grow water hungry crops in arid mountain plateaus.

Kind of like how the US built Phoenix and LA in the middle of the desert, and allows farming in the desert as well, setting the stage for a near term water crisis in the region when the Rocky Mountain snow melt gets cut in half?

Essentially, yes. Lots of places manage water poorly. You're basically making my point for me.

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#209

Post by [deleted] »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #197
smugma wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%2527%C3%A9... A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after Mossadegh nationalized and refused to concede to western oil demands.

Nationalizing resources simply gives the capitalist west a legitimate casus beli to “liberate” all the assets that were stolen. Venezuela is about to be turned into another Vietnam. Iran is next. I remember invading them in a mission in BF3. The USA itches to implement what its media anticipated.

[deleted]

Re: After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up

#210

Post by deadbabe »

mikeyinternews wrote: post #123
deadbabe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard of clickbait? It is unlikely Tehran will just evacuate all at once. They will do something drastic when the problem can no longer be ignored. And random events like rain will delay the inevitable for a while longer. Perhaps this is how climate change will end up as well.

Ever hear of reading the article you comment on? There was no mention of "moving all at once". As stated, moving the capital from Tehran "would take decades"...

Not what I read. In articles that said Tehran was two weeks away from no more water, the writers depicted scenarios of millions of people fleeing en masse because otherwise they would all be dead within a week from thirst, leaving Tehran an empty shell of a city.
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