Rivers of blood

When it comes to climate change, everyone is swift to focus on the fragility of our world, though what is often forgotten is how easy our political structures can shatter; simply put, before the environment kills us, we will kill each other.

The fact that climate change affects our available potable water is well known so I won't labour the point any further. What I will talk about, however, is the international and geopolitical consequence of that, and why we will almost certainly be drawn into wars once more over such a basic resource and water.

The existence of wars for resources is a simple fact of our species, resources that will make us as nations 'better' or 'stronger' than those around us. In fact, some would say that the most primary reason for society is to protect and secure more resources under a social contract for our continued existence and improvement as people. Today is no different, so much so that there is a simple adage that "if there is oil, the USA will invade.” We need to act now if that phrase is not to change to “if there is water, then everyone will invade!”

The difference when it comes to water is that never before has there been a threat that will permanently affect the global reserve when concerning essential resource gathering, pushing each society, group and nation closer to the onset of war. Beyond that, like any war, the number of displaced people will disrupt each surrounding nation's water supply, even if we start to heavily invest in desalination facilities – Lebanon is a prime example today. Wars over water have happened before, we need only look to the Water Wars which occurred in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbours over the countries projects involving the Jordan River to see the truth in that.

The change now is that we see an ever increasing number of people who are at risk of collapsing into water wars; the UN released a report in November last year stating that billions of people will face hunger and widespread chronic food shortages as a result of failures to tackle the climate crisis in the very near future.

It would be nice to believe that the international community wouldn't allow relations to degenerate into wars for water supplies, after all, the Water Wars I just mentioned happened over half a century ago. Sadly that hope is little more than romantic idealism, and simply serves to delay any meaningful effort to prevent the bleak future that lies ahead.

Even now tensions grow in our world over water, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which has just entered its second stage of filling, serves as a pointer to what the future holds, with Egypt threatening war over the blocking of the rivers flow. If we don't act now, rivers will run with blood and farmers will reap a red harvest, all just for a drop of the liquid that gives us life.

In our greed and lust for domination we have burned the world with oil, and now, after the world is ablaze with the fruits of domination, we strike the match that will ignite the wars for water.