The moral bankruptcy of the Islamic Republic is displayed every day in every way. The executions of Baha’is, the hanging of homosexuals, the imprisonment and torture of dissidents, the arrest of women who dare to remove their hijabs, the outsourcing of terrorist attacks to Hezbollah, the hysterical threats to destroy Israel, are all of a piece, along with the remarks of Ayatollah Lotfollah Dezhkham, Khamenei’s representative in Fars Province, who said on January 25, 2019 in Shiraz that “We Will Shout ‘Death to America’ until We Turn the White House into a Shiite Islamic Center.”
But along with the figurative sinking of Iran’s ship of state, the S.S. Naufragium (also known as the S. S. Narrenschiff, there is the literal sinking of the country, which threatens to destroy many structures, including airports, apartment buildings, factories, roads, and highways. Huge sinkholes have opened up throughout Tehran, a city of some 13 million people; one of them is 60 meters deep. Some are fifty feet across.
Here is the report, little noted when it appeared nearly a year ago, on this colossal threat to Iran’s infrastructure, for which there seems to be at this point no remedy and about which nothing has been done since this report appeared:
Stressed by a 30-year drought and hollowed by excessive water pumping, the parched landscape around Iran’s capital has begun to sink dramatically. Seen by satellite and on foot around the city, officials warn that what they call land subsidence poses a grave danger to a country where protests over water scarcity have already seen violence.
“Land subsidence is a destructive phenomenon,” said Siavash Arabi, a measurement expert at Iran’s cartography department. “Its impact may not be immediately felt like an earthquake, but as you can see, it can gradually cause destructive changes over time.”
He said he can identify “destruction of farmland, the cracks of the earth’s surface, damage to civilian areas in cities, wastewater lines, cracks in roads and damages to water and natural gas pipes.”
Several things have contributed to this catastrophe. Most important is the nationwide drought, which has gone on for 30 years. In 2018, only 6.7 inches of rain fell in Iran. By comparison, New York City gets 49.9 inches of rain every year. Because of the absence of rainwater, Iranians have been digging more wells, and Iran’s aquifers steadily decline.
Tehran, which sits 1,200 meters (3,900 feet) above sea level against the Alborz Mountains on a plateau, has rapidly grown over the last 100 years to a sprawling city of 13 million people in its metropolitan area.
The huge growth in Iran’s population, and especially in Tehran, naturally requires ever greater water use, at a time when the once-in-a-century drought has supplied only tiny amounts of rainwater. More salty water is pumped up from ground aquifers; this is not good for agricultural use.
All those people have put incredible pressure on water resources on a semi-arid plateau in a country that saw only 171 millimeters (6.7 inches) of rain last year. Over-reliance on ground aquifers has seen increasingly salty water pumped from below ground.
“Surface soil contains water and air. When you pump water from under the ground surface, you cause some empty space to be formed in the soil,” Mr Arabi told Associated Press. “Gradually, the pressure from above causes the soil particles to stick together and this leads to sinking of the ground and formation of cracks.”
Rain and snow to recharge the underground aquifers have been in short supply. Over the past decade, Iran has seen the most prolonged and severe drought in more than 30 years, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation. An estimated 97 per cent of the country has faced some level of drought, Iran’s Meteorological Organization says.
That has caused the sinkholes and fissures now seen around Tehran.
Iranian authorities say they have measured up to 22 centimetres (8.6 inches) of annual subsidence near the capital, while the normal range would be only as high as 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) per year.
Even higher numbers have been measured in other parts of the country. Some sinkholes formed in western Iran are as deep as 60 metres (196 feet)….
By insisting on becoming self-sufficient in food production, which was not an economic but a political decision, based on the Islamic Republic’s worry about the possible effect of sanctions on its imports, it has used up more of its available water than it had to. Iranian farmers use water inefficiently, unlike, say, the Israelis, who have learned to constantly adjust their methods to make maximum use of the water they do have, and who first came up with advances in drip irrigation that deliver to each plant the exact amount of water that plant needs. Israel has publicly offered to help Iran with management of its water; Iran has rejected the offer. Were Iran willing to forego growing all the food it needs, and return to buying some from abroad — as rice from China, and wheat from Russia, two countries that ignore the American sanctions on Iran — it could save a great deal of water in this time of historic drought. But it appears determined to continue with its ill-thought-out policy of autarky.
Already, the drought and water crisis has fed into the sporadic unrest Iran has faced over the last year. In July, protests around Khorramshahr, some 650 kilometres (400 miles) southwest of Tehran, saw violence as residents of the predominantly Arab city near the border with Iraq complained of salty, muddy water coming out of their taps amid the years-long drought.
The unrest there only compounds the wider unease felt across Iran as it faces an economic crisis sparked by President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long opposed Iran’s theocratic government, even released an online video in June offering his country’s water technology in a jab at Iran’s leaders.
“The Iranian regime shouts: ‘Death to Israel,’” Mr Netanyahu said. “In response, Israel shouts: ‘Life to the Iranian people.’”
Israel has out of necessity had to become a world leader in water management. This includes its advances in drip irrigation, which are well known worldwide; it has shared with others, both in the advanced West and in sub-Saharan Africa, its novel techniques of delivering the exact amount of water each individual plant needs.
Israel is also a pioneer in desalination, operating Sorek — the world’s largest seawater desalinization plant — some 10 miles south of Tel Aviv. While desalinization can be an energy intensive and expensive enterprise, the advanced technologies employed at Sorek allow it to produce a thousand liters of drinking water — about what one person in Israel uses in a single week — for 58 U.S. cents.
Israel aims to produce 200 billion gallons of potable water annually through five major desalination plants by 2020, and has shared its expertise in the field to help address water shortages globally, from Egypt to California.
Finally, Israel is the world leader in purifying its waste-water and using it in irrigation, making it the undisputed world leader in this field. 90% of Israel’s waste-water is reused; its nearest rival in this area, Spain, recycles only 20% of its waste-water.
Offered help in water management by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Iranian officials shrugged it off. But solutions to the water crisis will be difficult to find without improvements in irrigation, in desalinization, and in the re-use of waste-water. These are three fields in which Israel is recognized as a world leader. The Israelis are eager to share their expertise, even with their geopolitical enemy. It’s the mullahs who are preventing this….
Sanctions were the foreseeable result of a deliberate decision made by the Iranian regime to prioritize the acquisition of nuclear weapons over the well-being of its people. Sanctions prevent Iran from buying equipment that might be useful in both desalination plants and in waste-water treatment facilities. Iran’s own obstinacy in refusing Israel’s offer of help is further evidence of how it puts its anti-Zionist policy ahead of ameliorating the water crisis for 81 million Iranians.
Iranian authorities have begun to crack down on illegal water wells, closing 100,000 of them. But there are still 30,000 in use, and as fast as the government closes them down, new ones are dug. The Iranians are also exploring using desalinization plants along the Persian Gulf, but they continue to reject having Israel share its technical know-how in this area. Farming practices also need to change including greater use of drip irrigation; Iranian farmers, like many farmers in the Third World, have been reluctant to try new methods.
“We need to shift our development model so that it relies less on water and soil,” Mr Darvish, the activist, said. “If we don’t act quickly to stop the subsidence, it can spread to other areas.”
Thirty years of drought, the worst in Iran’s modern history, has caused Iranians to rely ever more on water from their aquifers. As it is pumped out, the loss of this underground water has created spaces in the soil where the water once was. This has led, in turn, to widespread subsidence of the soil. It is being pushed down, packed more tightly, as the water — and air with it — are sucked out of these aquifers. As the earth subsides, cracks are formed, and sinkholes, some as large as a bus, and 40-100feet deep (one sinkhole is nearly 200 feet deep) have been created. And even where there are no sinkholes, the subsidence of the earth by a few inches can have devastating consequences for buildings.
The sinking can be seen in Tehran’s southern Yaftabad neighbourhood, which sits close to farmland and water wells on the edge of the city. Cracks run down walls and below windows, and water pipes have ruptured. Residents fear poorly built buildings may collapse.
The sinking also threatens vital infrastructure, like Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. German scientists estimate that land under the airport is sinking by 5 centimetres (1.9 inches) a year.
Tehran’s oil refinery, a key highway, automobile manufacturing plants and railroads also all sit on sinking ground, said Ali Beitollahi, a Ministry of Roads and Transportation official. Some 2 million people live in the area, he said.
Masoud Shafiee, head of Iran’s cartography department, also acknowledged the danger.
“Rates (for subsidence) are very high and in many instances it’s happening in densely populated areas,” Mr Sherif told AP. “It’s happening near sensitive infrastructures like airports, which we consider a top priority.”
The mullahs have no idea what to do. They haven’t yet recognized the need to buy more of the country’s food from abroad — autarky be damned — so as to decrease the use of water for agriculture. They will never accept Israeli help in water management: drip irrigation, desalinization, and purification of waste-water. The more water that must be taken from aquifers in this time of historic drought, the more the earth subsides. And the more the earth subsides, the more cracks in buildings and pipes, with the possibility of collapse, and the more sinkholes into which cars and houses can disappear.
Right now in Tehran, an oil refinery, railroads, automobile manufacturing plants, a major highway, and above all the Ayatollah Khomeini airport, all lie on land that is sinking by nearly two inches a year. And there is nothing, at this point, that can be done to reverse the damage. Had Iran been run by technocrats rather than theocrats for the last 40 years, they might have built desalinization facilities on the Persian Gulf, on the model of Israel’s spectacularly successful plants, might have learned of Israel’s methods of drip irrigation, and promoted them among their own farmers, and might, finally, have been taught by the Israelis just how to purify waste-water most economically for use in agriculture. But instead of choosing to do what it would take to stave off or mitigate the current disaster, including accepting the expertise Israel has offered, the Islamic Republic chose instead to embrace its Qur’an-based hatred of the Jews. Their loss, their pain.
The result is there for all — with satellite imagery — to see. Many places in Iran are sinking, inch by inch, each year, as the aquifers are drained, and with that subsidence of the land, also sinking are its roads, its apartment buildings, its manufacturing plants, even its main airport. Expect to read more, in the next few years, of highways collapsing, of buildings crumbling, of runways gutted by sinkholes, in Iran.
Having been sinking, figuratively, during 40 hideous years of Islamic misrule, Iran has now begun to sink, literally, in the last few years. One more failure of the Islamic Republic. There have been so many.
Photo by Amirpashaei – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82910237
Clive Delmonte says
Perhaps there is a G-d after all.
william carr says
“Offered help in water management by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Iranian officials shrugged it off.”
Well of course they would that would mean they would have to cease calling for Israel’s annihilation. They would also never admit that Jews can be cleverer than Muslims
gravenimage says
The Jews are still offering to help–even their enemies. Truly civilized people.
bennett says
Big Al can’t be pleased with them. Probably not hardline enough.
PBH says
I saw the same thing in Egypt in the 90’s; they wouldn’t use drip irrigation because the Israelis invented it(!)
Blurb1000 says
How can we help Iran to sink more?
Steve says
While my heart goes out to the Iranian People they are ultimately to blame for the Theocratic State they have. Why is history so, so, so, so full of people only “getting it” after so many have died? Why does it take so many deaths to change?
Clearsighted says
Why does Israel continue to be willing to help her enemies? The Islamic fanatics can never be won over.
Wellington says
Fitting since it is quite arguable Islam itself is sinking because it is being scrutinized as it never has been before and its many horrible and stupid aspects are coming to light to both Muslim and non-Muslim alike, countable in the millions. Yes, on the one hand it appears Islam is spreading but is it really? Those adults who convert to Islam are invariably confused human beings, losers in life, and more Muslims than ever are becoming aware of just how little sense their religion makes, that it really is all made up.
Well, count me as skeptically optimistic but I sense often times the trend I mentioned above. For mankind’s sake I hope I am correct because a world with Islam practically extinct would be a far better world despite many other self-inflicted problems.
Savvy Kafir says
Wellington – Even though I tend to be a pretty optimistic person, I think that, on the whole, Islam is very much on the rise. Muslim colonizers, demographic jihadis, & stealth jihadis are currently on a trajectory to subjugate virtually every Western nation in just a few generations. (If not sooner; because, on the whole, the Muslim juggernaut seems to keep accelerating, with alarming new developments almost every week — often in the form of actions by Islam-friendly politicians, bureaucrats, & police forces, etc.) At this point, the civilized world is losing the global war of conquest, waged mostly via non-violent means, that a reinvigorated Islam has unleashed upon the world. As far as I’m concerned, that development more than cancels out any progress we may be seeing, in terms of more Muslims leaving Islam — and in terms of more infidels learning the shocking truth about Islam, which most people in the West were well aware of in past centuries, before political correctness made such knowledge taboo.
I’m NOT giving up the fight. I do not share the views of those fatalistic prognosticators who pronounce this or that Western nation to be a lost cause. Because of their very small numbers in the West, relative to ours, Muslims can be expelled from every Western nation. That will be true for some years to come. And I believe a Muslim-free West will be the objective of VERY motivated voters & governments, once enough people become fully aware of the threat that Islam poses to free societies & human rights. Ridding the West of Islam will be an immensely difficult & expensive undertaking — and no doubt a bloody one, in light of the uppity, imperialistic, violence-prone invaders we will be rounding up and deporting. But it will be well worth the effort, the expense, & the bloodshed, because that is the ONLY way the West can remain free & civilized for generations to come. And the optimist in me is (more or less) convinced that we will prevail – in spite of everything.
Agostino Armo Pellegrini says
Savvy,
Your optimism inspired me a bit, so I looked up some optimistic quotes and did an islamic spin on them.
“Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
When I hear Spencer or Geller or Wilders or Anne Waters speak I know I’m hearing people who are doing what is right, not what is easy. That’s why they are my teachers, not the mainstream media or politicians that lie for islam.
————-
“Follow your heart, listen to your inner voice, stop caring about what others think.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
And that’s what I try to do, I listen to my inner voice that tells me islam is dead wrong in what it teaches and what it wants to do. I don’t care if some leftist fool calls me a bigot, I don’t care how rich or handsome my opponents may be. I know the difference between right and wrong, and islam is far more wrong than right. I won’t tolerate the horrors of islam simply because of the little bit of good it might contain any more than I’ll tolerate a serial killer simply because they are kind to animals. If I don’t care enough to defend others from islamic tyranny then I am inviting the same for myself.
—————–
“Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
So true, as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate more what’s really important in life. Sure, I suppose I’d like more money, and it would be nice to have lived a more creative and “important” life. But if I can do something to mitigate the horrors of islam, like give money or speak against it with a tinge compassion and intellect then I believe I am truly making a positive difference in the world. I have no fear of repercussions in the next world if one exists, if there’s a “maker” to be met I’ll do so with a clean heart for what I’ve done to battle islamic bigotry and hate. I would expect a humanitarian god to be proud of my efforts and to praise me for my concern.
—————
“Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
There’s another good quote that makes sense. I believe that’s the kind of person Spencer and Geller and Anne Waters are, they’d speak against the dangers of islam even if nobody was there to listen. I doubt any of them are getting rich teaching about the horrors of islam, and even if they were they deserve it. We are in an age when telling the truth is a bold act, and nothing needs the truth more than islam. I’m grateful for people I’ve mentioned, they make me proud to be human, they make me feel like I can be great even if I’m not. I simply have to care and do my little part against the jihad crimes of islam, and in my own small way I’m “great” just like them.
Wellington says
Time will tell, Savvy Kafir, time will tell.
I am encouraged though by how stubborn the truth really is and that there is virtually NOTHING of truth about Islam. Just as many others in the past felt that Hitler and Nazism could not be stopped (examples being Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy Sr.) and that Communism was the wave of the future (e.g., Lincoln Steffens, who said of Stalin’s Russia, “I have seen the future and it works”), so I would argue that those arguing the inexorablity of Islam are mistaken—except that hiding behind its religious veil it has been much more “expert” at masking its iniquity, unlike the iniquities that are Nazism and Marxism.
Islam represents to me the best disguised and longest-lived malevolent ideology in history. Thus, it will take even more effort to eventually exterminate it (not its deluded followers, except the true “dead-enders,” but the ideology itself). I still am cautiously optimistic—long term though, not short term. Thanks for your reply.
gravenimage says
Good exchange.
Walter Sieruk says
That heinously cruel and murderous Islamic tyranny of Iran is very much stinking with brutal vicious and murderous violence against the Iranian people. Especially regarding females. Both girls and women. For example a teenage girl in Iran was talking to her boyfriend on the phone and then the Islamic state “police” walked over to her and shot her dead. They did that wicked and malicious thing to her because she was talking to her boyfriend and they also didn’t like her clothing. [1] That was a clear cut case of murder and vicious Islamic madness by Iran’s Islamic state “ police”, who call themselves the “Revolutionary Guards”, they got away with their hideous and malice –filled evil because the mullahs as well as other villains in power in that tyrannical Islamic regime .
[1] A TIME TO BETRAY by Reza Kahlili page 240
Walter Sieruk says
Back on the date of 4/22/19 the US Secretary of State ,Michael Pompeo spoke of that brutal and oppressive tyranny which oppresses the people of Iran and said “We will not appease their oppressors as that last administration did .” Pompeo then stated “We will support the Iranian people.”
As far back as on Tuesday, 2/5/ 19 in his second State on the Union a speech President Trump spoke of that Islamic tyranny of Iran as well as those in total power and complete of that tyrannical rogue state. For the President declared “It is a radical regime, they do bad, bad things.”
Moreover, an author of an article on a Freedom Site, Dariush Afshar, had explained the reality of the situation well when he wrote that the “People of Iran who fight for freedom in Iran and abroad put a huge gap and draw a prominent line between Iran and the Islamic regime in Tehran.”
This is sadly and tragically the terrible reality of this Islamic tyrannical regime of Iran. This Islamic tyranny has been well nicknamed “the mullahs regime” in which them mullahs and ayatollahs as well as other fiendish and fanatical Muslims in power have a strong and awful control of the Islamic regime of Iran and through their band of Islamic state “police” , who are called the “Revolutionary Guards “come down hard human rights of the Iranian people .
Therefore, the Iranian people who are trapped and forced to exist in this Islamic tyranny live in terrible fear of the mullahs and others in power in Iran. This is a tragic and sad reminder of the wisdom that was printed in the periodical of Benjamin Franklin which is entitled POOR RICHARDS’ ALMANAC that reads “Those who are feared are also hated.”
It also should be added, to this that the actual word “Republic” has on origin the Latin meaning “Of the people” With the mullahs ayatollahs in so much power and even influencing the parliament of this Islamic regime is tyranny is hardly a real republic .Furthermore the ruthless gang of thugs who are the stooges of those Muslim clerics, called the “Revolutionary Guards,” those Islamic State “police” come down hard on the human rights and freedoms of the Iranian people. Therefore the people do have the right to overthrow a tyranny. This reality had even been expressed and described by men of great intelligence .For example the philosopher .John Locke. This is wisdom that mullahs and other villains in power in that Islamic tyranny don’t want the Iranian people to know about or understand
Walter Sieruk says
Yes, that Islamic ‘Mullah tyranny is, indeed, stinking with the dead because of Is cruel, brutal and murderous Qu’ran based method 5:33 of persecuting Iranian protesters, and other people, is keeping with the long history of that violent “mullah regime” of Iran. Likewise also keeping within bounds All this fits with the actual legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini is the of violence and war.
To be more specific Islamic violence and war. Strangely, there are many young people and strangely many older people, who are Westerns who in the United States as well other countries of the West are, no doubt sincere but very misinformed ,as in misled, therefore say ,because they believe it, that “Islam is a peaceful and non-violent religion .” To those people the first and supreme Ayatollah Khomeini , who was the very head this current Islamic regime of Iran knows better stated about how he feels about those naïve Westerns .For he declared “Islam grew with blood….Islam is a religion of blood for the infidels” He also said “Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war….I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” [1]
So, in other words Ayatollah Khomenei felt nothing but arrogant contempt for those people who say that his religion “Is a peaceful religion” and understand that they in ignorant and uninformed.
Therefore the West needs to wake up to the reality of the truth about the actual violent essence of this religion.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM, by Ibn Warraq, pages 336,339.
Walter Sieruk says
This vicious, malicious and murdering ,stinking vicious ways of treating the Iranian people who are trapped and forced to existed in the “mullah regime’ of Iran. The horrible ,sad and tragic fact is the this heinous violence is staying within the national character of the rough Islamic state of Iran .
Therefore that attack, by Iran, should be of no surprise to any informant person, in fact , this fits in with the real legacy of Ayatollah Khomeini who was the Imam who was so powerful that he played large role in the establishment of the current Islamic tyranny of Iran which has the official title of “ The Islamic Republic of Iran” Khomeini had declared “ Jihad or Holy War ,which is for the conquest of [other ] countries and kingdoms , becomes incumbent after the formation of the Islamic State in the presence of the Imam or in accordance with his command. Then Islam makes it incumbent on all males…to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world… those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. The goal of this conquest would be to establish the hegemony of Islamic law.” [1]
[1] THE HISTORY OF JIHAD by Robert Spencer , page 319.
Walter Sieruk says
That stinking ,ruthless cruel brutal heinous l regime of Iran that is so unfittingly has the word “Republic” in its title ,for its called “ The Islamic Republic of Iran” [ I R I].
On the topic of this Islamic tyranny a former Muslim revealed that “The IRI system recognizes women as dependent upon men and incomplete human beings who need to be supervised and controlled by men and the State. This author further exposed that “Women are created for the purposes of giving pleasure to men and child bearing – functions that confine them to the home” This is a male Chauvinistic as can possibly be. In addition this writer further makes it known that “The IRI legal system still retains traditional patriarchal bias that can be described as nothing but systemic subordination of women , which is undoubtedly a human rights violation .” This author further reveals that “Iran is of what Islamic fundamentalists desire, an Islamic State, and the consequence of achieving it “State Terror. Instead of utopia, Iran is an Islamic totalitarian nightmare…” and “the Islamic Republic of Iran exists and operates as what every Islamic fundamentalist dreams of, an Islamic state ruled by Sharia …What followed its establishment was the inevitable consequence and inexorable logic of its Islamic premises; state terrorism, a merciless tyranny.” [1]
This heinous Islamic has been also exposed by another author who was born and lived in a Middle Eastern nation for many years. She wrote “Female freedom and independence is one of the greatest sins in Islam…” and “Women in Islam are considered unclean, deemed inferior even to dirt.” [2]
All this is wicked, unjust and misogynistic to the extreme. Islam had not regard for human life, regardless of what the apologists for this religion will claim.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM BY Ibn Warraq. pages 345-347.
[2] THEY MUST BE STOPPED by Brigitte Gabriel pages 62, 172
Walter Sieruk says
That cruel and tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran regime has severely limited to an extreme much knowledge and wisdom from the outside world . This is because that fiendish and murderous ayatollahs and mullahs in power in Iran are very much afraid the Iranian people might discover different ideas . As the idea’s and philosophy of John Locke
For example, Locke views the people living under any genuine government are people retaining their individual rights after a government has been established. In other words, the securing of their rights – the protection of the life, liberty and property of all – is the sole legitimate purpose of government. I If a government begins to abuse those rights it then becomes tyrannical and the governed [the people] retain the right to overthrow that government and replace it with one that does its job properly.
So that heinous ”mullah regime” of Iran , greatly fears such ideas and keeps the people under his hideous control of his tyranny in and the darkness of much limited information .
eduardo odraude says
Here and there one hears that large numbers in Iran are leaving Islam. Hard to know how overly optimistic those claims are.
Also, that the low birth rate of Iranian women will lead to a halving of the population during the next generation or so. A lot of old people with few young ones to take care of them, and an impoverished economy making matters even worse. David Goldman aka “Spengler” argued that Iran’s coming drastic population shrinkage is something the mullahs are aware of and something the prospect of which will make them dangerously desperate. They may take extreme actions before their population numbers shrink and make them all the more impotent.
elee says
The world is large and every human is finite. That being the case, Im very much inclined to regard people who dont seize our embassy, kill people in the process, and gather by the millions to shout death to America, death to the Jews…….as having a superior claim on my compassion. My compassion goes out to the several dozen feminists who have gotten themselves jailed for speaking up, and to the several dozen human rights activists theyve martyred. But until somebody comes up with a plan to subjugate the other 48 million Persians, Im much inclined to let them stew in their Islamic paradise, sinkholes giant rats and all. yred
Kenek says
Every islamic theocracy treats people the same way, why is this news? The problem is called “islam”. moslems who are being abused and killed are just feeling other aspects of their own cult. Only civilized people (non-moslems) deserve any sympathy.
FYI says
Surely al LAH the muslim god must be able to help his devout followers?
Surely allah has iran in the loving palms of his TWO RIGHT HANDS?
Or maybe iran’s misfortune is because al lah is an ARAB god and we know Persians and Arabs don’t like each other:iranians after all, are “praying” to an ARAB god.
The Persians deserve better than a muslim ARAB god…the god of the invaders of Persia..
Carol the 1st says
The better character of the nation seems to continue shining through. If they kicked out the Arabic ‘religious’ tomfoolery they could more easily clear their heads and rejoin the brotherhood of man.
To the mullahs: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back then it’s yours; if it doesn’t, then it never was.”
DHazard says
Muhammad didn’t care about CO2 emissions so why should anybody else? If Muslims do indeed end up conquering the world then we will quickly return to the pre-industrial World. Problem solved.
Wellington says
A strange comment DHazard, to say the least. I guess you were aiming at sarcasm.
And for the record, I would like to note that there is no scientific evidence for man-made global warming and that CO2 is not a poison but rather food for plants (and it makes up presently, at most, .04% of the atmosphere, i.e., a mere 400 parts per million versus what it has many times been in the past, which is to say far, far higher, as much as 8,000 parts per million). If you or anyone else doubts me about my contention that there is NO scientific evidence for man-made global warming, then I say cite the evidence (N.B., correlation studies and computer model projections, each of which has a wretched record for accuracy, ARE NOT scientific proof).
I would also asset that I don’t want to go back to a pre-industrial world. Fossil fuels, which don’t harm the environment to any major degree (if at all), has made life for billions far easier. I really like fossil fuels AND the Industrial Revolution. Count me in as pro-fossil fuels, pro-Industrial Revolution AND pro-freedom (N.B., this trinity are compatible with one another, indeed supportive of one another, no matter what loons like AOC and the UN aver—both enemies of liberty and common sense, as is all Leftthink).
Not trying here to “get on your case.” Just stating things for the record. Take care.
Linde Barrera says
To Wellington- With the utmost respect, I ask you these questions:
1) I read an online article article in 2018 about the ice fields of Chamonix Mont Blanc melting gradually since the late 1930’s so that the staircase to that area had to be lengthened from 1 flight to 5 flights. (1 flight being either 14-15-16 steps.) Would that not indicate some type of atmospheric warming? To my mind it would.
2) I hate the evil doctrine of Islam but I do not hate Muslims (because they are people with a soul who can be converted to Jesus Christ, God Incarnate.) And in your previous comment of Dec. 15, 2019 at 8 pm you said “…there was virtually nothing of truth about Islam.” I agree with you except for 1 point; “War is deceit” said the so-called “prophet” Muhammed. Isn’t war deceit, especially when bureaucrats and elected officials make a profit from it?
I look forward to your answers, and thank you.
Wellington says
Thank you Linde Barrera for your reply.
First matter first. No one disputes that since the late 19th century the climate has warmed up a bit by about one degree. But the CAUSE for this is very much in dispute. And no one also disputes that a thousand years ago the climate was warmer than it is now (the medieval warming period from around 700-1300). These are due to natural fluctuations based on such things as solar activity and ocean currents. Mankind’s “contribution” here to such climate changes is laughable. For example, the oceans and seas of the world pour out into the atmosphere annually some 190-230 gigatons of CO2 (which, btw, seemingly has only become a poison over the last thirty years—it is not,; it is food for plants), while mankind, from all its activities, pumps out only about 15-20 gigatons of CO2 on a yearly basis. But mankind is causing catastrophic global warming. Right.
I vigorously assert that man-made climate change is the greatest environmental nonsense of all time and has become a substitute, secular religion. Here’s an example: Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus at MIT, is so eminent in the matters of weather and climate that he was asked to be on the UN climate panel. When the panel issued its report (United Nations Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change—UNIPCC) Lindzen repudiated the report because with no scientific evidence (only computer model projections and correlation studies, neither of which constitutes scientific proof and each of which has a notorious record for accuracy) it concluded that there was a 90% chance that man was causing catastrophic global warming. Lindzen was aghast by this conclusion and said so very publicly and since then has been persona non grata among the silly man-made climate change gurus. And just to drive this point home further, the Los Angeles Times is on record that it will no longer print any letter to the editor disputing man-made climate change. So, if Richard Lindzen, the foremost authority in the worold on the mathematics and physics behind climate change wrote a letter to the LA Times, they would refuse to print it. This should tell you that there is much more about religion than science respecting so-called man-made climate change.
Second point: I wrote “virtually” which is a way of saying almost nothing at all (rather than completely nothing). Yes, sometimes war requires deception, but my response to your second inquiry could be summed up this way: What in the Hell is a major religious founder doing by “pontificating” on war in the first place? Put another way, even a stopped clock is right twice in every 24-hour period. Mo didn’t get everything wrong, “just” almost everything.
I too look forward to a response by you. Hope you and yous are doing well.
gravenimage says
Linde, while deceit is often a necessary stratagem of war, not all war is intrinsically deceitful in motive. For instance, it might be necessary to use deceit to monitor a Mosque, but the purpose of protecting innocent people from Jihad terror is not in itself deceitful. This is the ethical yardstick I use.
It was the same, for instance, when we fought Fascism during WWII.
tim gallagher says
My reaction to this report is that if there is some kind ecological disaster, parts of the country sinking or whatever, then, watch out Europe and the rest of the civilised, non-Muslim world, because there will be “refugees” from Iran who will start demanding to be taken into the non-Muslim countries and will then set about destroying them and trying to impose barbaric Islam. I always wish that Muslims would stay in their “wonderful” Islamic paradises. They don’t belong anywhere else and will never settle into non-Muslim countries peacefully. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting report about those sinkholes.
ntesdorf says
If the drought continues, the Twelfth Imam might be forced to come out of hiding in the well.
vlparker says
Hire Greta to fix it.
Battle says
Hugh Fitzgerald wrote about the money for better irrigation, desalination, water and sewer was spent on atomic bomb development, paying Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and Yemen rebels salaries, arms, missiles, ammunition, food and building mosque forts and imams salaries in many countries.
The ayatollas steal from their own people.
Battle says
The ayatollahs would rape underage Greta, forcibly convert her to Islam and marry her underage.
gravenimage says
Grimly true.
FYI says
Did you see that Greta had to apologize for saying that world leaders could be “put up against the wall”?That’s a typical bolshevik lefty expression.
Also,she complained about being on an overcrowded train{there is a photo of her sitting on the floor}but according to the railway company she had a FIRST CLASS Seat:what a phoney!
St Greta Thunberg….
gravenimage says
Did Greta Thunberg say this? Does she know that this refers to being put up against a wall *and shot*? Just appalling if she does. Of course, she’s a kid–what adults has she heard this from?
gravenimage says
Iran is Sinking, and Not Just Figuratively
……………
This seems apt.
Jonh Doe Denmark says
Sinkholes?
No, it’s the Gates at Hell opening to swallow the mullahs, and all the dictatorial people of the clerics and government.
Carol the 1st says
Just what I thought!
“Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws.” ― Confucius
Mike Hayes says
Time to up the consumption of camel urine and cut back on water.
Ed Lee says
From the article: “The mullahs have no idea what to do.” This is not new. Back in the late 1990s some Iranians were hearing “disturbances” in the sky but could not see anything to explain it. Many imams said, with certainty, that it was Allah preparing to unleash the Day of Resurrection, and millions of people started getting ready for divine judgement. Then, a couple of older military pilots who had been trained by the Americans back in the days of the Shah, got in their aircraft, flew up and found the real situation. It was Global Hawk and Predator drones with cameras that were being used to spy on Iran. As far as I ever read, the gloom and doom imams never admitted their error. They won’t now, either.
Nelson W. Lentz says
Don’t tell yourself, as I am sure that many will, that this is God punishing the evil Muslims for their evil ways; this glorious development is nothing but the result of purely natural causes.
Carol the 1st says
Maybe the real God is hinting they need to increase their thirst for vital, updated knowledge.