In 2022, waves of fierce and fierce sandstorms completely swallowed the entire Middle East . In extreme climates, the people are in a state of pain and the government is anxious because the orange demon brings not only a threat to health, but also a brewing economic, agricultural, social and political crisis.
The strange orange as thick as sandpaper covers the sky, as bright as wildfire without flames. Coupled with the body-sensing hot, dull and irritable weather, and the silent vehicles and pedestrians moving around, the scene in front of you seems to fit the doomsday scene in film and television works.
After entering 2022, from Riyadh ( Saudi capital) to Tehran ( Iran capital), the sandpaper-like sky has become accustomed to locals. The strong wind rolled up the sand and rose up, and people kept their doors closed and dared not let the wind and sand enter the room. The top of the Mirad Building, the tallest building in Tehran, is completely hidden in yellow fog, and the skyline of the city of Mosul, Iraq is covered with a dust wall.
Sandstorms were originally a bad climate common in late spring and early summer, with strong seasonality, but since the beginning of spring, sandstorms have become a frequent visitor to the Middle East, including Syria , Iraq , Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, etc. In the past two months, there have been ten sandstorms in Iraq. The most recent one occurred on May 23, with many countries suffering casualties due to the storm. The Iraqi government announced in advance that May 23 is a national holiday, urging government staff and residents to stay at home, schools are suspended, businesses are suspended, and hospitals are busy stocking up oxygen tanks everywhere. The threat posed by
to residents' health and health systems is a crisis that has emerged on the surface. According to World Bank , increasingly frequent sandstorms have brought economic losses to the region to $13 billion each year. From agriculture to commerce, from residents' health to socio-economics, from the wealthy UAE to the barren Iraq, everyone is shaking in the dust.
Environmental, economic, political, and refugee crises are being brought by one huge storm after another.
"I can't even see my hands"
Nina Peters doesn't remember the feeling of normal breathing.
This asthma patient living in Dubai, UAE has been diagnosed with COVID-19. She finally survived and waited for one sandstorm after another. She wore a mask from morning to night every day, with doors and windows closed tightly, and did not dare to go out to work. The high-calorie and high-humidity air mixed with sand can kill her.
On May 23 and 24 this year, Kuwait stopped maritime traffic and suspended flights. This is the second time in May that the country's planes were grounded due to sandstorms. Schools and government offices in Tehran have already been closed due to the last round of sandstorms, and have been waiting for a new round of closures before they are opened. The impact of sandstorm is the most serious in the Huzistan Desert area in the southwestern part of the country, with more than 800 local residents seeking medical treatment due to breathing difficulties. On the 24th, more than 1,000 people across Iraq were hospitalized for respiratory problems.
At the same time, southern Iraq and Iran are soft and wet arable land, as sandstorms are drying up, staggering and even desertification, and many people there make a living from the land, and famine is brewing.
"I am 63 years old. The sandstorm in April is the worst in my memory. I have never seen such waves of sandstorms after wave before." Iraqi Abdul Ira Mohamed told the UAE's National News while cleaning up the soil that the sandstorm blows into the gaps in the cell phone.
"Year after year, these storms have become more fierce and terrifying. In some places, visibility is almost zero, you can't even see your hands, and you can't breathe even in your house." According to NASA data, sand storms on May 23 and 24 floated up to an altitude of about 5,000 meters above the ground.
Outside the window, the sky has turned orange-red, and tiny dust has penetrated through the cracks of the door and windows, and the room is filled with a choking smell of dust. “We have been removing dust from our homes and work locations since last month, but more dust comes the next day."Abdul poured water from plastic cans on the floor and washed away a layer of loess that had been plated on the ground.
The sandstorm on May 23 forced thousands of people to go to hospitals, killing at least one person in Iraq and three in eastern Syria. Earlier in May, a similar storm in Syria killed at least three people and hundreds were hospitalized for breathing problems. Saudi Arabia Meteorological Association reported that road visibility in the capital Riyadh had dropped to zero. In May, 1,285 patients poured into hospital emergency rooms in Riyadh, complaining that they could not breathe normally.
" By 2050, Iraq may have sandstorms of 300 days in 365 days a year. "A official from the Iraqi Ministry of Environment said, "In the past 20 years, the number of sandstorms in Iraq has increased from 243 days a year to 272 days. ”
, an environmental scientist at Columbia University’s School of Climate, told , Washington Post , three elements are needed to trigger sandstorms: wind, almost no dust source covered by vegetation, and very dry conditions.
—This is also the vicious cycle facing the Middle East today.
Due to the deterioration of global climate, 2020-21 is the second-lowest rainfall in Iraq in the past 40 years. There is no water irrigation, crops fail to harvest, and rivers dry up. Vegetation is gradually dying without water, unable to strengthen the soil, the surface becomes loose, and strong winds are more likely to "uproot the soil". "This is also the reason why some locals in Iraq now call sandstorms "soil reduction". "Explained by Salam Abdulahman, a lecturer at the University of Human Development in Iraq.
Researcher Ismail Al Aimeri, a researcher at the University of London, Birkbeck, gave an example, , the salt lake about 150 miles south of Baghdad, , Al Sawa has almost dried up, and each of the remaining soil, silt and salt at the bottom of the lake can become a sandstorm when blown by strong winds.
Also, due to frequent extreme weather, including sandstorms, eroding soil, declining grain output, and many surrounding factors including war, leading to tight global food markets. Farmers increase their efforts to cultivate for a living. These measures will only make the arable land more loose, and it is easier to cause sandstorms, and then sandstorms. The violence has brought about a new round of land desertification, decline in grain production, and over-cultivation.
In addition, a 2019 study by the World Bank found that humans over-exploited rivers and lakes, creating a quarter of dust in the Middle East. Iran drained wetlands for cultivation, and the swamps in southern Iraq were also drained. Turkey in Tigris and The construction of dams on the Euphrates River means that the downstream riverbed is drier. Excessive urbanization has made two-thirds of Iraq's vegetation cover disappear without a trace.
The increasingly hot weather has played a role in adding fuel to the fire. According to Banavshe Kenus, a non-resident scholar of the Iran project of the Middle East Research Institute, in recent years, the Middle East has heated twice that of other parts of the world, since the first industrial era , the Middle East has heated up by about 2.3 degrees Celsius.
water supply has also fallen into a vicious cycle.
Abdulahman explained that sandstorms have caused more water consumption and exacerbated the water shortage. "After each sandstorm, people need to clean their houses, yards, cars, water trees and plants in their gardens, and water vegetation is even less water. ”
No vegetation reinforces sand and soil, no moisture absorbs dust, and more and more sand and dust rises up, forming a storm.
13 billion
The World Bank wants to embody the face of these orange demons - it gives a number: 13 billion US dollars.
According to the organization's estimate, every year, the GDP of the Middle East will lose about 13 billion US dollars due to sandstorms, and this number will only become more in the future. This growth trend can be referred to another World Bank report in January 2020. The report found that the global losses caused by dust increased from US$2.2 trillion in 1990 to US$3.6 trillion in 2013.
The strategic and economic status of the Middle East is self-evident.According to CNN, the Middle East has three strategic waterways, and half of the world's known oil reserves are in the Middle East. After many European and American countries imposed embargoes and sanctions on Russian energy, the shortage of oil and natural gas tightly grabbed the throats of many Western countries. The unexpected shutdown of the factory under this situation can only make the current global oil market even more in panic.
The consequences of maritime traffic congestion are already proven by vivid precedents - in March 2021, a large ship that was blown off the route by a sandstorm blocked the Suez Canal. In just six days, nearly $60 billion of trade transactions were stranded - this is 12% of the world's trade volume.
The poor Middle Eastern countries are also consuming internal friction. The gloomy orange sky and sand-painted streets make employees forced to stay at home at any time. The government can only allocate funds to alleviate the financial burden of enterprises and maintain the operation of basic social order. Sandstorms damage crops, consume fertile soil, and the food exported has nowhere to fall. The factory machines were damaged by the storm, and the closure of ports and airports cost the government a large amount of customs duties. Infrastructure and road cleaning under sand and dust are needed everywhere.
Take a huge sandstorm that occurred in New South Wales, Australia on September 23, 2009 as an example. That time, the Australian government spent US$219 million on the aftermath alone.
The overall health level of the people is an invisible and intangible price. According to Craig M. Meisner, senior environmental economist for Middle East and North Africa, as many as 30,000 deaths among Iraq, Egyptian and Pakistani people are attributed to poor air quality. We found that the higher the concentration of dust in the air you breathe, the more likely it is to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)."
In Kuwait, the number of asthma patients in emergency rooms has increased by 8% in the past five years due to sandstorms. In Qatar , the chance of asthma patients is increased by 30% due to sandstorms. Some studies have found that more than 10% of Saudis suffer from asthma.
In this regard, the Middle East countries are not waiting for death, but the years of poverty, corruption and war in some countries have caused local governments to throw the control of sandstorms and the environment behind them.
Saudi Arabia plans to plant 10 billion trees in the next few decades to reduce its carbon footprint and land degradation. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman published a "Middle East Green Initiative" last year, preparing to cooperate with other Arab countries to plant another 40 billion trees in the Middle East.
At the same time, according to the "Tehran Times ", Iran has also spent 450 million euros (about 3.21 billion yuan) in the past three years to alleviate the high incidence of sandstorms in the country by planting trees, stabilizing soil, building windbreak walls and other measures.
Iraq has been trying to protect one of Iraq's Shiite holy cities by planting eucalyptus , olive tree and jujube tree . But construction delays, shortages of funds, and government neglect and laziness have led to the failure of the project. Some critics pointed out that the project's fiscal expenditure is not transparent enough and management loopholes are everywhere.
And in the war-torn Yemen , the governance of the environment is even more a joke - in fact, the local organization of force maintains its local power by controlling the allocation and supply of water resources.
Author: Ye Chengqi
