A correspondent on the situation in Egypt:
Just another of the many coming ecological and societal disasters resulting from overpopulation and “mining” of what could have been renewable resources (actual mining takes, e.g, gold ore out of the ground and once it’s gone, it’s gone — in contrast to harvesting wood from a forest, which can be done sustainably such that the forest continues to produce wood for eternity). We have been “mining” fertile cropland soil, water resources, forest resources, ocean fisheries, etc. for decades upon decades — centuries in some more localized cases, foolishly imagining them to be endless or simply living in denial. There are simply far too many people on the face of the earth, consuming far too many resources. We are effectively borrowing — well, plundering — them all from the future. It’s all going to start coming home to roost very soon.
The Earth is a big place and we’re very small beings, comparatively speaking – so it might be a bit harsh to suggest that we were fools 100 years ago. No, just ignorant of how many of us were going to be around now, and how much strain that implied.
But your primary point is also evident in this WorldPress.org article on Egypt from Joshua Goldfond:
To say that Egypt is a country on the edge of crisis should be a surprise to no one. As one of the richest, largest and most influential countries in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, the state’s regression to military control four years after the Arab Spring has left many of the movement’s most hopeful advocates despairing. And yet, these ideological disappointments pale in comparison to the larger existential threat it now faces. Like much of the MENA region, Egypt’s failure to stem corruption, address economic inefficiency and directly address climate change is exacerbating its already acute problem with food security. A three-step plan involving subsidy reform, technological development and caloric diversification could ease some of this danger. …
The nation’s yearly shortfall of 7 billion cubic meters of water can be expected to skyrocket if rising levels of the Mediterranean Sea flood Egypt’s northern lakes, choking off fresh water sources and destroying its fish hatcheries.
