By Franz Schurmann

(fschurmann@pacificnews.org)

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Prediction #72 for Tuesday, August 8, 2000

Question: Is the current Middle Eastern drought caused by the "Wrath of the Gods" or by the Ways of Nature?

Answer: By the Ways of Nature

Basis for the Prediction:

In its July issue the National Geographic magazine on its cover featured a piece on the devastating Turkish earthquake of August 17, 1999. The title was "Wrath of the Gods - Catastrophe in the Cradle of Civilization."

In the insurance industry they call a "direct, sudden and irresistible action of natural forces such as could not reasonably have been foreseen or prevented" (Random House Dictionary) an "Act of God." If the insurance companies can show that an event fits this legal definition then they are freed from paying out on their clients' policies.

Earlier this year the Geographic put out an issue about various kinds of natural disasters that could not have been foreseen or prevented. In the July issue other stories had the same tone as the Wrath of the Gods piece: Australia ­ "A Harsh [Environmental] Awakening" and "a canyoneer's heaven can quickly turn into a watery hell as flash floods continue to carve the slot canyons along the Utah-Arizona border."

In the 1980's two famous professors fiercely argued with each other whether the world was heading for hell or heaven. Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich kept on saying humans were driving the planet towards catastrophes while the late Julian Simon from the University of Maryland's Business School argued humans were moving the globe's future from bright to brilliant.

But the Geographic's tone is different from both Ehrlich and Simon. While it grants that humans are responsible for much environmental degradation it also sees a lot of Acts of God in nature. One of these it has not written about nor have the general American media. Yet it is a natural catastrophe in the making that could lead to great human conflict ----- or to something else.

For several years now a drought of huge proportions has been developing in the Middle East. A workshop of people based in Cairo called "Water Management in Africa and the Middle East" have compiled data that show annual renewable freshwater available per person in the two regions has declined by half since 1950, and continues to decline. They say that while water quality and water-borne diseases are the main concerns in Africa in the Middle East water is a major factor in regional conflicts.

The Middle Eastern drought spread goes westward from India's Rajasthan desert through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Israel. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this year's March-to-May rainfall in Southwest Asia was the lowest in 80 years. As the year turned Muslim imams in Iraq recited the "istamtar" prayers calling on God the Merciful and the Compassionate to let rain fall. In Israel farmers' water allotments were cut over 25 percent. The UN has warned that the water situation in Iran has become "critical."

An article in the Arabic language As-Sharq al-Ausat not only reported large streams of rural people migrating to the cities but also new waves of Afghan refugees fleeing drought, war and famine. As a result, the Cairo workshop notes, "the use of treated, recycled sewage water is accepted practice in countries, such as Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Morocco." But the European Economic Community is considering a proposal to embargo crops grown in reclaimed sewage. "If implemented," they say, "it would be a severe blow to Middle Eastern agriculture."

Is the Middle Eastern drought an Act of God? Few experts believe that. Desertification has been going on for a long time. Not only that but it is most severe in a certain band of land. If you find a world map and put one finger on the 40th northern latitude and the other on the 20th northern latitude and then, starting from western North America, run them eastward the area enclosed will contain just about all major deserts except for East Asia. There the band shifts northward to between 50 and 30 degrees. That shift may have something to do with the crashing together of India and mainland Eurasia that brought about the towering Himalayas.

There is plenty of evidence to show that the entire band, including its two segments, was green and fertile some 5,000 years ago. There are Sahara Desert cave painting stretching through southern Algeria, northern Niger, Chad and southern Libya that show not only green color but lush plant growth and animals like elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses and other animals that need large quantities of water.

We also know that when the Buddha lived some 2,500 years ago along the present India-Nepal border the region was lush in vegetation. Now his birth-site Lumbini is arid and treeless. China's Takla Makan is a desert so dry that natural mummies, some over 2,000 years old, were formed by nature alone. They today can be seen in several Chinese museums.But only a millennium ago a flourishing Buddhist civilization existed along its now bone-dry Niya river. Some two millennia ago we also know that China's and Mongolia's Gobi Desert were well watered and supported a significant agricultural population.

And, of course, we know that the Jewish and Christian Bibles and the Muslim Al-Qur'an describe a Garden of Eden that enjoyed tropical lushness. It probably was located somewhere in desertified Arabia or Iraq.

Scholars know that ancient desertification drove out the populations of this vast band of land. In Africa the emigrants went southward toward the Niger River and eastward toward the Nile. In West Africa vigorous West African cultures arose as did East African and Egyptian in the Nile region. Farther east the region of the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, became the Cradle of Civilization in the Western view. In India it was the Indus and the Ganges. Recent excavations have shown great ancient cultures in the region of the Irrawaddy and the Mekong. And Chinese civilization developed around the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.

Much of this vast region today has become desert. That doesn't mean rain never falls but it does suggest there is a Way of Nature that goes back for two, three or more millennia and whose form is a relentless desertification.

Civilizations began with farming, villages and small towns. That has been the case from West Africa to East Asia. As more and more land became desert the villages huddled closer to the towns, oases. In time the towns became bigger and bigger. The UN has noted that one half of the world's population now lives in urban sites, that is, cities. It predicts that the ratio will increase fast.

The drought in the Middle East is not an Act of God. It is the result of a Way of Nature that can, of course, lead to a catastrophe. But it can also lead to salvation. Like it or not a world people is in the process of formation. It started 5,000 years ago. And despite much suffering and loss humans have survived and made life better for themselves. In the end the late Julian Simon was much closer to reality than his jousting partner Paul Ehrlich.