When Development is a Step Backward

The following is a link to an article entitled Iran: Environment Takes a Back Seat to Development Plans from an online news analysis site:

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1078370.html

The author, Vahid Sepehri, uses the example of the Kavir National Park in north-central Iran to illustrate how development in the interest of oil and an industrial economy is endangering safe spaces and the environment they protect. Kavir is home to several rare native and endangered species including the Persian leopard and the Asiatic cheetah. The area was declared a national park and biosphere reserve in 1976 by the Iranian monarchy.

Since then, however, two oil projects have been pushing for expansion, which would entail blasting, digging wells, and the building of pipelines and saltwater canals underground through the Kavir. As of now, construction is awaiting approval, but the threat still looms.

These actions would threaten the park not only in disturbance, but it would also ruin the soil and thus vegetation because “the injection of 4 billion cubic meters of gas under the national park would force large amounts of saltwater to the surface.” In an area that is already arid, this is extremely dangerous.

Kavir National Park is only a case study in the many hazards posed to the environment in Iran. It has been noted that the environment has already experienced degradation for military development. Several dams, chemical plants, and refineries have already been constructed, all of which “might generate jobs and money for some, but it would destroy the local environment and lead to long-term and more generalized poverty and sickness for locals.” This quote by Etemad-i Melli points to the human factor that is connected to environmental degradation. There has been a rise in birth defects in Iran, which have been traced to pollution from oil and production effluent into the Persian Gulf.

Once again, all of these negative environmental impacts are a result of so-called development. This may be an assumption, but I feel that it is a commonly held opinion in our class that military expansion is not necessarily progress. At what point does the security of a country overrule food security for its people? So often, the military and production of oil are used to protect a nation’s geographical and economic place, but if the actual land and resources are destroyed through environmental degradation, doesn’t this seem counter intuitive?

Approximately 4,000-5,000 Tehran residents are estimated to die every year from air pollution

I found this article about environmental issues in Iran and there are plenty to go around with!
I was just astounded by some claims that around 5,000 people in Tehran alone die from air pollution.

One can clearly see that the problems of a relatively successfully developing country are depicted in Iran as well. High levels of pollution, huge increases in population, higher energy consumption and the increase in CO2 emissions. Between 1980 and 2000, the CO2 emissions doubled from 30 million metric tons of carbon to over 80 million and, according to Wikipedia, in 2004 the levels are around 433 million, which is 5 times more than in 2000, and 14 times more than 1980. I just find those number to be very impressive!


Oh, and I found an interesting video about the largest and most important river of Iran and the pollution. It is clearly very biased, claiming that the Iranian government is not doing anything to prevent the pollution because there is a large number of Arabs living in that area, which is bordering Iraq.
I just found it interesting to see how people would assume such things (which might or might not be true) and actually see the pollution on video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ix4_NsqI8

Gulf War Oil Spill Pictures

The deliberate oil spill of 1991 in the Persian Gulf negatively impacted those waters, as well as the coastal ecosystems of Iran, destroying wildlife and plant habitat, as well as contaminating the water source. 

Here are some photos of the largest oil spill ever (1,450,000), some of them are better than others: 

i got these from this website: http://rpitt.eng.ua.edu/Class/EffectsandFates/Module7/Module7.htm, which also has photos from other big oil spills. some of these photos are closer up and show how the oil in the water looks and bubbles up and just sits on top of the water. it's disgusting, and it makes me think of Free Willy 2 when Willy is dying because an oil spill and they just can scrape the oil of of him. That wasn't even real and its horrifying. This oil spill was HUGE, real, and intentional. I think that the environmental impacts of our actions are disregarded in much of our development as nations, but especially in war.