Chronicle of a Water War Foretold
Over at Common Dreams yesterday, Gwynne Dyer has a very thoughtful piece about Pakistan's water problems. Not the floods, but chronic and sure to become worse water shortages. A quick Google search turns up similar pieces here, here, here, and here. I hadn't realized how serious the situation already is, or that India and Pakistan are squaring off over proposed Indian dams. Grim. On my mental scorecard I'm upping the odds that Pakistan may fall apart in the medium term.
Posted by George Kenney on August 22, 2010 12:46 AM 
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Comments
Pakistan "may" fall apart? How would you define its stability today? We tend to think of all nations as if they were Western in design and structure, with a central government in total control of all their parts, sections, regions, etc. On a scale of Western-style stability, if Somalia is a flat zero and Afghanistan is a 1, Pakistan can't be much more than a 4 or 5, could it?
[Good point, Rich. I guess I might put it at a "6" but that's merely quibbling. The worry is that a nuclear armed "6" is better than a nuclear armed Somalia! g.]
Posted by: Richard Greener | August 23, 2010 11:12 AM
Secrecy News recently posted a link to a Congressional Research Service detailed report concerning Pakistan and its diminishing water resources:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41358.pdf
[Thanks, Charles! g.]
Posted by: Charles Bowman | August 23, 2010 6:01 PM
In 2009 Gwynne Dyer produced a 3 part show with the CBC on his book Climate Wars. It mixes the science with some cool pseudo-sci-fi future world stuff. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone taking the dog for a walk.
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/features/2009/07/09/climate-wars-part-12-cd/
Posted by: mike | August 25, 2010 7:24 PM