Pentagon preps for conflicts sparked by climate change

CAIRO, Egypt – Dr. Mamdouh Hamza stood on a salty, barren stretch of caked sand and pointed to a clutch of rich green date palms a few hundred yards away. “What you’re looking at over there – that gives life to people.” Then he pointed down, towards his muddied shoes. “And this is land which gives death to people. That’s the difference – life and death.”

For this 50-something environmental engineer, what is happening to his beloved Nile Delta is nothing less than lethal. The funnel-shaped ancient land of the delta, the most fertile area in the Middle East, is Hamza’s birthplace, and home to some 60 million Egyptians.

But the delta is under attack from the Mediterranean Sea, which has risen one foot in about 70 years – some scientists believe as a result of global warming. The rising water has already crept into aquifers and lapped across fields of crops, turning them into marshland.

VIDEO: Could climate change spark conflict?

“It’s terrifying,” said farmer Mohamed Helawany as he pruned his few surviving guava plants. “We’ve built barriers with wood and reeds, but the water keeps coming on the plants and kills them.”

Some scientists predict that, based on current data, the sea will rise another three feet in about 30 years. Hamza translated that projection into flesh-and-blood reality. “It will mean losing at least a quarter, perhaps 40 percent of our delta. It’s not only agriculture, it’s roads, it’s railways, hospitals, schools, banks, government buildings – it will be an economic disaster.”
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Source:
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/16/2153988.aspx