But, the vast reservoir was built for far more than recreation. In fact, the massive Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1935, provides this desert region and surrounding states with a reliable water supply from the Colorado River as well as an excellent and inexpensive source of electricity.

Covering the state lines of Arizona and Nevada, Lake Mead stores water from the vast Colorado River, which runs through a whopping seven states – Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. So, to say that Lake Mead and the irreplaceable Colorado River are important to the citizens of the western states, would be a huge understatement.

However, for the past decade Lake Mead has been battling the worst 10-year drought in recorded history along the Colorado River, which feeds the 110-mile-long reservoir.

Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 1 percent a year. It is estimated that by 2012, the lake’s surface could fall below the existing pipe that delivers 40 percent of Las Vegas’s water.

In 2000, the water level at Lake Mead was 1,214 feet, close to its all-time high, but it has been dropping ever since. When Lake Mead was built during the 1920s and 1930s, the western United States was experiencing one of the wettest periods of the past 1,200 years.

Even today, our so-called drought is still wetter than the average precipitation for the area averaged over centuries. In other words, for the past 75 years, we’ve had more moisture than we ever realized. And, we definitely took it for granted.

Farmers have been growing rice by flooding arid farmland with water from Lake Mead,  desert community residents have been maintaining lush front lawns, and avid golfers depend on green, healthy courses in areas where temperatures typically exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer.

A combination of a solid demand for Lake Mead’s thirst-quenching water and an ever-changing climate has resulted in a 100 foot drop in Mead’s water level since 2000. While that might not look like a great deal of water loss because it is just 10 percent under the lake’s 1983 high water mark, we have to remember that Lake Mead is like a martini glass.

The vast reservoir is wide at the top but narrow at the bottom. So that 10 percent loss of water actually represents a loss of half of Lake Mead’s water supply. This huge loss happened in just nine years – The lake went form 96 percent capacity to roughly 43 percent.

Amazingly, when full, Lake Mead can hold an astonishing 9.3 trillion gallons of water. This is an amount equal to the water that flows through the Colorado River in a two-year period.

And, this is water that is put to good use. Lake Mead’s life-sustaining water is used for many things. It irrigates a million acres of crops throughout the western United States and Mexico, and the reservoir supplies water to tens of millions of people.

The massive and mighty Hoover Dam generates enough electricity to power approximately a half-million homes. But that’s not all. The power from Hoover Dam is also used to transport water up and across the Sierra Nevada Mountains on its way to Southern California.

But, however, the lake continues to shrink. Lake Mead’s water level fell 14 feet last year, and the Bureau of Reclamation has projected the level will drop 14 more feet this summer. That will bring it perilously close to 1,075 feet, the point at which the federal government can step in and declare a drought condition, forcing a reduction of 400,000 acre-feet drawn from Lake Mead per year.

A typical Las Vegas home uses a half acre-foot of water per year, so such a reduction would be equal to turning the tap off for 800,000 households.
Going beyond the implications for residents living in areas supplied by Lake Mead, the water loss has ramifications for the local economy too. It was recently estimated that Lake Mead National Recreation Area, along with affiliated marine operators, were losing some where in the neighborhood of three million dollars for every ten foot of lake lost to this devastating drought.

Currently, Lake Mead’s water level is hanging close to 1095.26 feet above sea level. The end-of-year projection is now predicting that Lake Mead will drop several more feet below its current level. This is a huge loss considering the lake is considered full at 1,219 feet.

The year 2009 started out well as officials projected that Lake Mead could receive an additional one million acre-feet of water based on the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunatly, however, the thaw did not translate into the expected runoff, and Lake Mead and the Colorado River’s water shortage problem marched on.

In 2008, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography issued their “When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?” report. The report said there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead will dry up by the year 2021. If this happens, it could mean no more water, no more pumping and no more electricity for many, many people.

There is, however, some good news. Strong conservation efforts are helping this serious condition. For example, Southern Nevada has significantly reduced its water draw from 325,000 acre-feet a year in 2000 to 265,000 acre-feet in 2009. Even with this reduction, the grand Colorado River still remains over utilized.

This is easy to see when you consider that millions of acre-feet of H20 are rushed to California, Nevada, and Mexico each year. This continually drains and strains both Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell faster than either lake can be replenished.

Some of the conservation solutions and suggestions include “grass buyback” programs to convince residents of the benefits of installing drought-tolerant landscaping, tax incentives for swimming pool-covers as well as the inevitable water rate hikes.

One of the more radical ideas involves pumping water from the eastern United States, where many regions’ rivers have been inundated with extensive flooding, over the Rockies to the western, sweltering states. Another interesting proposal lies beyond the shores of California, where there is a vast, open ocean of water available for desalinization.
While these are possibly viable alternatives, the power and financial requirements for either proposal would be enormous.

Whatever the solution to the Lake Mead water crisis is, it is likely not going to be a simple one. If the drought-like conditions continue, action will likely need to be taken sooner rather than later in order to save the reservoir.

It might be discovered that the money and time it will take to quench the western United States’ thirst are like the water supply. They are all running short.

The land of the Somali people, much of it arid and inhospitable, has been close to civilization and international trade for thousands of years.

Situated on the Horn of Africa, jutting out into the India Ocean, Somalia’s harbors are natural ports of call for traders sailing to and from India. Somalia’s coastline is frequented by many foreigners, in particular Arabs and Persians. But, in Somalia’s interior, the Somali are on their own.

Most urban households use charcoal for everyday cooking. It has been estimated that some families use a full sack of charcoal every four days due to their large family size. And, with this exacerbated charcoal use comes a significant amount of environmental fallout.

Because of an insufficient and cheaper alternative to charcoal and a large former refugee population, tree felling and a great dependence on charcoal in the self-declared republic of Somaliland are adversely affecting the environment. A 2007 study by the Academy for Peace and Development reports that greater than 2.5 million trees are felled each year and burned for charcoal in Somaliland. The report further stated that each household in Somaliland consumes an average of 10 trees a month.

Considering this extensive use of trees, the serious affects of deforestation should be noted. Deforestation not only exacerbates soil erosion, it also reduces rainfall availability. In addition, trees are a vital component in carbon fixing, which is the natural process of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Interestingly, the demand for charcoal remains very high, despite charcoal prices going up since 1991 with the resettlement of former refugees. Roughly 10 years ago, one sack of charcoal cost Somalis only about 5,000 Somaliland shillings, or 0.76 US dollars, but now the price is about 30,000 Somaliland shillings, or 5 US dollars. And, this price is only aggravated by rainfall, because when it rains, the trees become wet and the charcoal becomes more expensive.

It is not difficult to see that the ever rising gas prices have helped to encourage charcoal use. In past years, gas was actually cheaper than charcoal, but the price has increased dramatically. Now, one liter of gas costs approximately 4,000 Somaliland shillings or 0.61 US dollars, which is up from 1,500 Somaliland shillings or 0.23 US dollars.

Nowadays, charcoal is even the preferred fuel in hotels, which obviously consume even larger quantities of this valuable and environmentally important commodity. It has been estimated that some hotel chefs even use a full sack of charcoal for a single day’s cooking.

It is no wonder that researchers have determined that one of the main driving forces of African deforestation is the need for fuel.

It is also estimated that in sub-Saharan Africa, only 7.5 percent of the rural population has access to electricity. A 2009 report on the state of the world’s forests reports that “as household incomes and investment in appropriate alternatives remain low, wood is likely to remain an important energy source in Africa in the coming decades.”

Going back as far as forecasts made in 2001, it was suggested that there will be a 34 percent increase in wood fuel consumption from 2000 to 2020. However, as the price for fuel continues to rise, this increase is likely to be even greater. In other words, the share of wood fuel in the total energy supply is likely to decline, while the number of people dependent on wood for fuel and energy is likely to grow.

The report goes on to say that “the forest situation in Africa presents enormous challenges, reflecting the larger constraints of low income, weak policies and inadequately developed institutions.”

With this ever-increasing demand for fuel, many environmentalists are concerned that the trade in charcoal will eventually wipe out some species of trees. For example, one species of trees used for charcoal production is the Acacia bussei tree, which can produce between eight to 10 sacks of charcoal per tree. Researches are worried because the Acacia is the most preferred tree specie for charcoal production, timber and fencing, and its extensive use could force it to the brink of extinction in the Somaliland territories.

Efforts are being made, however, to stop or slow down the felling of Somaliland trees. On April 30, 2009, concerned with the impact of charcoal burning on the environment, Maroodi Jeeh, regional governor of Hargeisa (a city in the northwestern Somaliland region of Somalia), banned trade in charcoal as well as the burning of trees. Other attempts at protecting the environment have included the introduction of gas stoves and solar cookers in the main urban centers of Burou, Las-anod, Gabiley, Wajalea and Borama.

Since January, Somgas Company has been supplying gas to residents. A typical household uses an 11-kilogram cylinder for approximately six weeks. Although initial gas and cylinder prices remain high, an 11-kilogram gas cylinder plus gas costs $44.50 and is recharged at just $19.
This is certainly not expensive compared with the monthly charcoal consumption of about $15 for three 20-kilogram sacks of charcoal per household. (The gas cylinders range from two to 22 kilograms.)

According to Somaliland’s Ministry of Pastoral Development and Environment, there is still great cause for concern, even though charcoal consumption fell in 2008 compared with 2007.

Mohamoud Ibrahim Mohamoud currently heads the forestry section in the ministry. He says he is concerned about environmental degradation caused by the charcoal trade, and is working with several organizations to search for alternatives to charcoal energy. The problem that seems to drive the tree felling and forest burning for charcoal is the poverty throughout the countryside and the high demand for charcoal energy in the urban areas.

Overall, the demand for charcoal appears to be increasing daily and the burning of trees is also increasing. But, many leaders and environmentalists are now trying to encourage awareness and education among the people of Somalia and give them other sources of income, such as helping young people become involved in alternative activities such as bee-keeping.

It is obvious that other sources of income and further education and research are needed if the problem of deforestation and charcoal burning will be successfully addressed and redirected in Somalia.

In the 1920s, farmers succeeded in conquering The Great Prairie Plains of the Midwest. The plains were then transformed into the “amber waves of grain” we know today. However, this transformation came with a heavy price.

In fact, the agricultural triumph over The Plains was the tipping point that changed a typical La Nina-type drought cycle into an enormous environmental disaster that we now know as the Dust Bowl.

Depending on where you are in the world, a drought can have different meanings. According to the United States Weather Bureau, a drought is a period of 21 or more days during which rainfall is no more than 30 percent of the average rainfall for a specific geographical area at a designated time of year. 

The Dust Bowl was an area in the United States that experienced an extended and intense period of drought, which lasted from 1931 until 1939. The states that made up the Dust Bowl were Kansas, southeastern Colorado, northeastern and southeastern New Mexico, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. 

Throughout the Dust Bowl, soil from roughly 150,000 square miles of farmland was blown by the wind into huge dust storms. Immense clouds of dust filled the sky as far east as New York City, New York and Baltimore, Maryland.

While the Dust Bowl occurred during a period of drought, researchers know that the Dust Bowl drought, while much hotter and drier than a typical drought, did not fit the profile of the periodic droughts that generally hit farther to the south. Actually, while regular climate oscillations may have triggered the initial drying, the contribution of human land degradation played a big part in this atypical disaster.

In the absence of modern agricultural techniques, large-scale crop failures at the drought’s onset reduced vegetation cover, which only exacerbated the heat. Then, the resulting dust storms brought on by the badly eroded croplands also affected the atmospheric moisture content enough to further intensify drought conditions.

In 1931, dust from the seriously over-plowed and over-grazed prairie lands began to blow. And, it continued to blow for eight long, dry years.

As the storms blew across the plains, it came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of black from the North. This just wasn’t any wind, this dust-filled wind made even the simplest acts of life difficult. Taking a walk, eating a meal and breathing were no longer easy and they couldn’t be taken for granted.

Most children wore dust masks to and from school, people started hanging damp sheets over windows in feeble attempts at stopping the dirt and farmers could only watch as their valuable crops were blown away. The agricultural devastation that resulted from the Dust Bowl windstorms helped to lengthen The Great Depression, whose effects were already being felt worldwide. 

During the years of normal rainfall, the grasslands in the Dust Bowl states had been deeply plowed and the land had produced bountiful crops of wheat. However, as the drought of the early 1930s worsened, farmers continued plowing and planting, even thought very little could thrive in the parched soil.

The ground cover that once held the soil in place was now gone. The winds had whipped across the fields pulling billowing clouds of dust and dirt into the skies often reducing visibility to just a few feet. The skies would be darkened for days, and it became common for even the most well-sealed homes to have a thick layer of dust on the furniture. In some of the hardest hit areas, dust drifted like snow and covered whatever was in its path, including farmsteads, cars and city streets.

In 1932, there were 14 reported dust storms, also referred to as “black blizzards” or “black rollers.” As conditions worsened, in 1933, the number of black blizzards jumped to 38. These devastating dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area and affected the entire country. The extensive drought that accompanied the dust storms is said to be the worst drought in United States history because it covered over 75 percent of the country and severely affected 27 states.

The Yearbook of Agriculture for 1934 says, Approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production; 100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil; 125 million acres of land now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil.

Because this ecological and human disaster caused millions of acres of farmland to become useless, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. These people became known as “Okies” because so many of them came from Oklahoma. Countless Okies migrated to California and other states in hopes of better living conditions and jobs.

However, what they found were economic conditions little better than those they had left behind in the Dust Bowl. Because they didn’t own land and had no home, many people traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and working in the fields for only starvation wages.

With no rain clouds in sight, the drought continued and so did the Dust Bowl storms. On Sunday, April 14, 1935, the worst black blizzard occurred, causing extensive devastation and turning the day to night.

Shortly after Black Sunday, the United States Congress declared soil erosion “a national menace” and established the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. The SCS developed extensive conservation programs, which helped to retain topsoil and prevent irreparable damage to the land.

Farming techniques, including strip cropping, terracing, contour plowing, crop rotation and cover crops were promoted. Farmers were now paid to practice soil-conserving farming techniques.

The SCS and these new land-friendly farming techniques was a great step in the right direction, but the storm was not over yet. By the end the year, experts estimated that about 850,000,000 tons of topsoil had blown off the Southern Plains during 1935 alone. The fear was that if the drought continued, the total area affected would increase from 4,350,000 acres to 5,350,000 acres by the spring of 1936.

Because the Dust Bowl black blizzards raged on and the drought continued, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Shelterbelt Project in 1937, which called for large-scale planting of trees across The Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas. The goal was to protect and preserve the land from erosion.

Native trees, including green ash and red cedar, were planted along fence rows separating properties, and the farmers were paid by the government to plant and cultivate these trees. Ultimately, the project cost roughly 75 million dollars over 12 years, and had somewhat limited success.

However, as time passed, even thought the drought continued, further land conservation efforts began to make progress. The extensive work re-plowing the land into furrows, planting trees in shelterbelts and other conservation methods had finally resulted in a 65 percent reduction for soil blowing.

In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of drought, the rain finally came. This brought an end to the black blizzards of the Dust Bowl and allowed The Plains to recover and once again become golden with wheat.

In today’s ever-changing world, in areas where vegetation loss often leads to increased wind erosion, it appears that history could repeat itself and we could experience Dust Bowl-type droughts again in the future.

Researchers with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center report that, although it is not possible to predict the exact time, history suggests that another great drought could certainly occur in the future.

The first step for anyone wanting to predict the risk of a future catastrophic climate event is to look at past occurrences. Unfortunately, however, good rainfall records only go back about 100 years, and accurate atmospheric records only exist for the last 50 years.

With that said, historical measurements do suggest that droughts have been a fairly regular event in this country. North America experienced a dry spell during the 1950s and another in the late 1980s. NASA’s research suggests that there was almost a drought in the 1970s, but for some reason it did not happen.

On a much longer timetable, sediment records, tree rings and other alternative evidence of climate change suggest that The Great Plains has actually weathered multiple droughts, which lasted significantly longer than the Dust Bowl.

These severe droughts appear to have happened once or twice a century over the last 400 years. Some evidence even points to droughts lasting over a decade during the late 13th and 16th centuries, which were much more devastating than the droughts of the 20th century.

It seems that history indicates that we can expect much worse than the 1930s Dust Bowl in the future, but knowing when and where remains anyone’s guess.

The Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh has been home to the Marsh Arabs for thousands of years. Their homes are shown in Sumerian art from five thousand years ago.

The Marsh Arabs shared their home with Asian water buffaloes, wolves, and two kinds of otter. If you saw the film Ring of Bright Water, the star was an otter from this region. As many as two-thirds of the waterfowl that winter in the Middle East spend the cold months here: that’s seventy nine species, among them pelicans, flamingoes and many kinds of duck. The bandicoot rat and the Mesopotamian gerbil are only found in the marshes.

The marshes also cleaned the water which flowed into them and supported commercially important fisheries.

After the Shiites rose against Saddam Hussein, he began drying the marshes by channeling water away from them and directly into the Shatt el Arab. Most of the inhabitants were killed or fled to Iran, so that only 40,000 of the original 250,000 to 500,000 people remained. In the first four years, Saddam drained 60 percent of the marsh; today only 7 percent remains.

According to a report made by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2001, the marshlands that once covered between 5,800 and 7,700 square miles now comprised just 386 square miles. UNEP ranked the destruction of the marsh with the desiccation of the Aral Sea and the deforestation of the Amazon as one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

Because of its importance both to birds that live and breed there, and to the migratory birds which use it as a stopover, the loss of the marsh has put 40 species of birds at risk. Seven species are already extinct and the Sacred Ibis and African darter are nearly so.

Many species of fish are also at risk.

Restoration of some of the marshland is possible, but salts in the soil and dams in Syria and Turkey make complete restoration very difficult.

Photos of Marsh Arabs on Flickr
Map and pictures from National Geographic:

The Aral Sea is in the Republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is largely shallow with many lagoons and islands and was once the world’s fourth largest body of inland water. Today, it is the eighth largest, and one of our greatest ecological disasters.

In the 1960′s increasing amounts of water were diverted from the Aral Sea to the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers for irrigation of rice and cotton crops. Over the years, the Aral Sea has retreated by as much as a hundred meters, leaving a vast area littered with abandoned fishing boats and other marine equipment.

Photo credit: upyernoz

Because the volume of water has shrunk so much, the salt in the water has risen to toxic levels, 23% in the late 1980′s. Once carp, bream, sturgeon, pike-perch and other fish provided a good living for commercial fishermen. Others made a living trapping muskrats. By 1982, all commercial fishing had ended and about 60,000 people lost their livelihoods.

With 500 species of birds, 100 species of fish and 200 species of mammals, the Aral Sea Basin had a diversity of wildlife that compared with Africa. Most of these animals have now died.

Every year the prevailing northeast wind carries over one hundred million tons of salt-laden, fertilizer- and pesticide-contaminated dust from the former sea. This dust has been found in Antarctic penguins. The same deadly mix has filtered into the ground water and into irrigation water.

Hospitalization rates have risen dramatically and the mortality rate has gone up by fifteen times in a ten year period. Local child mortality, due to the deterioration of the environment, is higher than anywhere else in the former Soviet Union.

The remnant of the Aral Sea has been divided by a dam. The North Aral Sea has seen an increase in water level due to many large international projects. The success there has given some hope for the South Aral Sea, which had been abandoned to its fate.

Like so many African cities, Brazzaville’s history is one of imperialism and being dominated by European culture. The Portugese controlled the area as part of the slave trade until the late nineteenth century. The area then came under the influence of the French, who made it a protectorate and renamed it Middle Congo. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza negotiated a treaty with King Teke on behalf of the French and the village of Nkuna was re-named in Brazza’s honour. It became the capital and the central city in French Equatorial Africa.

In 1944, as French influence in the region ebbed and Free French forces defeated the forces from France, Charles DeGaulle agreed to a meeting between leaders of French colonies in Africa, Free French political leaders, and French colonialists. The meeting, known as the Brazzaville Conference, resulted in the Brazzaville Declaration.

That declaration granted unprecedented rights to Africans living in French Equatorial Africa, including a statement that the French Empire would remain united; semi-autonomous assemblies, a form of self-government, would represent each colony; citizens colonies would have the same rights as French citizens. And be allowed to vote in French parliamentary elections; and the native population would be eligible for employment in the French colonial public service. The Brazzaville Declaration also began the establishment of economic reforms to reduce the worst effects of the exploitative system that had developed along with French colonialism.

While the results of the Brazzaville Declaration are not as positive as the declaration makes them sound, and western paternalism continues in the region to this day, they marked a major turning point in both French imperialism in Africa and African history.

In 1946, DeGaulle granted full French citizenship to the members of all colonies in French Equatorial Africa as recognition of the important role the area had played during World War Two. In 1959 Congo became fully autonomous and in 1960 it gained full independence. Three years later a period of unrest centred around the labour movement removed the president. A civilian government was then instituted and lasted until 1968.

In 1968 a military coup overthrew the government and over two decades of one-party rule, leaning heavily to Marxist-Leninist policy followed. The Soviet Union played heavily in the politics of the region until its collapse.

In the early 1990′s multi-party rule was established, but the 1993 elections were marked by violence and the 1997 elections brought a four month civil conflict that destroyed much of the capital of Brazzaville. In 1998, unrest broke out again and the Brazzaville-Pointe Noire railroad, which was economically crucial to the country and especially to the capital of Brazzaville. Many civilians were killed during the unrest and refugees from the fighting reached crisis levels. In 1999 the Congolese government began meeting with several rebel groups that had formed.

In the early 2000′s, former president Lissouba and ex-Prime Minister Kolelas were tried for treason in absentia. In 2002 the people of Congo ratified a new constitution and the country began repairing itself. In 2003, southern rebel groups agreed to a final peace accord.

Brazzaville, and the rest of the Republic of Congo, has been relatively peaceful since the ratification of the constitution, but the peace is tenuous at best. The problem of un-repatriated refugees represents a humanitarian crisis and is the source of some unrest.

In 2003, a survey found Brazzaville the worst city in the world in which to live. It finished 215 out of 215 candidate cities, below Baghdad which placed 213. Nearby Pointe Noire finished 212 in the survey which, according to the BBC, “was based on an evaluation of 39 quality of life criteria for each city including political, social, economic and environmental factors, personal safety and health, education, transport and other public services.”

Parasol in Pointe Noire. Photo credit: FredR

A related survey done around the same time found Brazzaville to be the sixth most dangerous city, which is not surprising since it is the capital of a country that has an estimated 40,000 weapons in the hands of civilians. The population of the country is under 4 million and half of that population is under 15 years of age, making that amount of weaponry in the hands of civilians a major threat to stability.

AIDS is a major killer in Africa, and the Republic of Congo is no exception. The pandemic has had devastating effects on young adults, reducing the median age of the population to 16 years old. Because it affects the immune system, those suffering from AIDS are more likely to contract and be unable to fight off other diseases. Malaria and tuberculosis are rampant in and around Brazzaville.

A lack of proper infrastructure for sewage and trash removal has left Brazzaville with some serious health issues. Water borne diseases are common in children and among adults. Diarrheal disease are common and fresh drinking water is often unavailable, which further spreads the illness.

AIDS and other illness has lead to a shortage of people of working age. In a major city like Brazzaville, that leaves infrastructure crumbling, schools and hospitals short-staffed. It has greatly increased the stresses on systems that were already struggling from years of internal strife. Children are often orphaned and in the poorest sections of the city, it is not unusual to see children as young as eight trying to raise their younger siblings or look after their sick parents.

Nor is the AIDs pandemic the only major issue facing the population of Brazzaville. The Republic of Congo depends heavily on oil money to keep its economy rolling. It took out massive loans in the past, using oil production as collateral, to back the loans. While the current high oil prices are providing somewhat of an economic boom, Congolese oil fields are beginning to run out. When the oil ceases to flow the economy will be cut by more than half.

Next to oil, logging is the second largest portion on the economy. That is threatened both by global warming which, combined with wood used for cooking fuel, and tracts of land being cleared for agriculture, is causing desertification. The excess heat now related to climate change by many experts has caused a seasonal shift that has changed the timing and amount of rains, making agriculture difficult. The agricultural subsidy regimes of the US and European Union have also made it uneconomical for farmers to grow food crops while pushing the price of food up for those living in cities such as Brazzaville.

The poverty, disease and hunger, combined with the easy availability of weapons, a history soaked in the blood of colonialism and unrest in neighbouring countries, could easily lead to further political instability. That would drag the Republic of Congo and the city of Brazzaville back into the cycle of violence that it has tried for so long to escape.

Karimov’s human rights record is abysmal. He has been known to boil political dissenters alive. He has repressed religious rights, ostensibly as part of the war on terror. When it comes to human rights in Uzbekistan, there aren’t any. Karimov has detained human rights workers and ordered his troops to fire into crowds of demonstrators. Political opponents end up in prison and are tortured or killed.

The violent restriction of human rights grows from the paranoia so commonly seen among totalitarian dictators. Karimov even banned the playing of billiards because he was afraid that people would talk about politics while playing. While that may sound humourous, it goes a long way towards demonstrating the depth of Karimov’s paranoia.

Despite all of the well-documented problems in Uzbekistan over a decade of Karimov’s rule, the United States and allies such as Britain welcomed Karimov into the war against terror. In exchange for military aid, the US received the use of the Karshi-Khanabad air base and facilities for 800 US troops. The Bush administration ignored criticism of having such a brutal regime as an ally until last year.

Even with the criticism of their relationship with Karimov, a relationship that echoed the Reagan administration’s relationship with Saddam Hussein, The US maintained a relationship with Uzbekistan while choosing to ignore Karimov’s abuses in exchange for his cooperation. While the need for an ally in the war on terror is often cited, Uzbekistan is strategically located between Russia and China and has sizable natural gas reserves, estimated in 2005 to be 1.875 trillion cubic meters, and a small amount of oil. Considering the strategic importance of energy in the area, relations with Uzbekistan could have more to do with natural gas reserves than the war on terror.

The relationship between Uzbekistan and the US, as well the European Union did finally begin to sour in 2005, however. A small armed uprising in the province of Andizhan was followed by a large, peaceful demonstration. Reports vary, and there may or may not have been a few armed militants among the protestors, but the Uzbek military responded to the demonstration by firing into the crowd. The true extent of the casualties is not known, but human rights experts have responded to the incident as being on a par with the Tiananmen Square massacre. The government crackdown on political opponents and human rights advocates since the massacre is brutal and repressive, with torture, disappearances, and politically-motivated murder becoming commonplace.

After the incident in Andizhan, pressure began to grow in the EU for sanctions to be put in place against Uzbekistan and the accounts of officials in the Karimov regime frozen, although no comprehensive action was taken. There was little reaction in the United States, with aid ( $91.6 million in 2005) continuing to flow, but some harsh words about human rights from the Bush administration caused Karimov to kick the US military out of the Karshi-Khanabad air base. Since that time, both Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Congressman Christopher Smith (R-New Jersey) have introduced bills calling for an end to all aid to Uzbekistan and the freezing of foreign accounts and travel restrictions for Uzbek officials.

Karimov is now currying favour with Russia and China, who have far less interest in human rights abuses than western countries claim to have, and are even more likely to ignore, or partake in, gross abuses to gain access to energy reserves or strategic military advantage.

The spectre of further human rights abuses and the poverty that is so pervasive under totalitarian regimes points to an unhappy future for the people of Uzbekistan, but making things worse is trying to eke out a living in a country that has suffered serious environmental damage.

During the Soviet era the excessive use herbicides, pesticides, defoliants, and other chemicals combined with the diversion of water for irrigation from two major rivers devastated the environment. The diversion of the Amu Darya and Syrdariya Rivers has caused the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth largest inland body of fresh water, to shrink in size. The Aral Sea is now less than half the size it was in the 1960s, holding only about one third of the water it once did.

Widespread irrigation has contaminated what water still exists with agricultural chemicals. Naturally occurring soil salt, has become concentrated from excessive irrigation. The dried lake bed where large portions of the Aral Sea used to be now produces dust storms full of agricultural and industrial chemicals which, combined with the salt, blow for up to 800 miles. The contaminated dust in these storms kills plant life, causing desrtification.

The environmental devastation continues. Although Uzbekistan is a signatory to several environmental treaties, including clean air and water agreements and the Kyoto protocol, less than half of the smokestacks in the country have filtration devices. The most common method of chemical disposal remains dumping it into a rudimentary sewer system if one exists in the area.. Only about 50% of urban areas and 25% of rural villages have sewers in Afghanistan, so chemicals are often just dumped in the nearest ditch or river.

The result is that most of the underground water supplies are contaminated and the rivers and ditches are basically open sewers. Water-borne illness is common and chemical-related disease is not unusual. Respiratory illness is common in both rural and urban areas.

All indications are that the environmental situation will continue to worsen under the reign of Islam Karimov. Those who speak out against it risk imprisonment, torture, and death. Complaints from international agencies have little impact on the Karimov regime and local activists are silenced, so the environmental issues worsen with the human rights abuses.

There is no end in sight to the suffering of the people of Uzbekistan. The west failed to help them for strategic and economic reasons. Russia and China have shown even less of a compunction to use their influence to better human rights or environmental conditions. Unless some way is found to intervene, Uzbekistan will continue to be one of the worst places on earth in the foreseeable future.