Egypt Independent: Environment

Heat wave Thursday, warnings against sun exposure

Al-Masry Al-Youm — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:12:00 +0000

Meteorologists project the beginning of a heat wave on Thursday, with temperatures expected to rise by eight to nine degrees Celsius. The peak of the heat wave will be on Friday, with a high of 39 degrees Celsius in Cairo.

Experts advise citizens to avoid direct exposure to sunlight, especially between 12pm and early afternoon, and to avoid driving on roads near bodies of water or vegetation, where heavy fog is expected in the morning. They predict that the temperatures will start to cool off by Saturday.

Mild weather is forecast for the north coast on Wednesday, with heat and humidity in the delta and extreme heat in the south, but with cooler temperatures at night across the country.

Cloudy weather and fog will bring low-visibility to the north coast and to North Sinai. The Gulf of Suez and areas along the Red Sea will experience light to moderate wind, mostly northeasterly, which is expected to disrupt maritime navigation.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

China's bird flu outbreak cost $6.5 billion

Reuters — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:10:00 +0000

The H7N9 virus appears to have been brought under control in China largely due to restrictions at bird markets, but caused some $6.5 billion in losses to the economy, U.N. experts said on Tuesday.

Health authorities worldwide must be on the lookout to detect the virus, the experts said, which could still develop the ability to spread easily among humans and cause a deadly influenza pandemic.

The new bird flu virus is known to have infected 130 people in mainland China since emerging in March, including 36 who died, but no cases have been detected since early May, Health Minister Li Bin told a meeting of the World Health Organization. One case was found in Taiwan in April, making a total of 131.

"The immediate outbreak has been controlled, but it is also unlikely that virus has simply disappeared. We believe we need go another autumn/winter/spring season to know," said Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general for health security.

"We also have high concern over the potential, I stress the potential, to gain the ability to sustain transmissibility."

There was no evidence of sustained spread among people and "most cases probably resulted from infected poultry or perhaps contamination related to live poultry markets," Fukuda said.

Li said local Chinese authorities had shut down live poultry markets "temporarily or permanently as needed" to control the source of outbreaks in 10 provinces. It standardized methods of transporting poultry to reduce spread among birds.

China's government had spent 600 million RMB or $97 million to support healthy development of the poultry industry, Li said.

"In view of the present situation, H7N9 is preventable and controllable. There has been no qualitative change in the epidemic. Cases are sporadic and there has been no genetic mutation (of the virus)," she said.

H7N9 is highly pathogenic in humans, causing severe respiratory disease, but is not virulent among birds, making it nearly impossible for farmers to detect, experts said.

"There have been no (human) cases since May 8, that is a good indication and means measures are being taken seriously. Now when the virus is found at market, all birds are killed, that is important too," Bernard Vallat, head of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), told reporters.

Out of 60,000 samples taken from birds, 53 were found to carry the virus, Liang Wannian of China's health ministry said.

There is "no red flag" for H7N9 among poultry, unlike H1N1 which kills off flocks, said Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"Economic impacts of H7N9 have been astounding," he said.

"Over $6.5 billion has been lost in the agriculture sector because of prices, consumer confidence and trade. So poultry industry losses in China have been high," Lubroth said, later making clear it was an estimate by China's agriculture ministry.

Final Issue: For a new generation of physicists, change was unwelcome

Mohamad Adam — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:59:00 +0000

This piece was written for Egypt Independent’s final weekly print edition, which was banned from going to press. We offer you our 50th and final edition here.

The events depicted in this article are inspired by various real-life accounts and herein are recounted to examine the hypothesis that the young would be better off if they listened to their elders.

At the age of 16, Max Planck, the Nobel laureate in physics in 1918, decided to set aside his pursuit of music and start studying physics. He asked professor Philipp von Jolly at Munich University for advice but the professor’s response was disappointing.

Von Jolly told him not to study the subject, arguing that nothing remained to be discovered. Despite some depression provoked by his professor’s words, Planck studied physics, resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be discovering anything new but satisfied with examining the basics of the science.

That was the spirit controlling many physicists by the end of the 19th century. Many believed they had discovered everything there was to discover and all universal phenomena could by explained through one of the three branches of the sciences: classical mechanics, electromagnetism and thermodynamics.

Physicists of that age, along with their colossal egos, killed new ideas, under the belief that they couldn’t possibly be true. Nature, however, was stronger.

By end of the 19th century, nature couldn’t bottle in all of its anger against the hubris of physicists, who believed they understood all of its laws, anymore.

A message in the form of black body radiation was sent their way. The phenomenon describes the emission of radiation from black bodies, which have the ability to absorb any radiation they are exposed to without reflecting it.

At laboratories, results referred to changes in the intensity of radiation emitted by black bodies, which were different from results found by equations explaining the same relationship. This represented a crisis of sorts between the worlds of experimental and theoretical physics.

Scientists occupied themselves for a long time with the possible reasons for the difference. Planck reconsidered the equations until he arrived at one that could explain black body radiation properly. Reaching the equation was a shock for him and other scientists, many of whom called his work a “mathematical fiction.”

But Planck’s theory opened the door for reconsidering energy and radiation. Scientists then believed energy could acquire any value. The new theory proposed that energy should take specific values.

A war of words soon erupted, as Planck’s theory, if proved correct, would destroy the idea that physicists could explain all physical phenomena. It would also open the door for reconsidering the basics of physics.

The elders of the field told their younger brethren, “You’re playing about with mathematics. We shall find in our physics the true explanation for this phenomenon.” And, so, the 19th century ended in controversy, with the old physics being threatened by a newer, more open-minded version.

Over the 20th century, the notion that “physics is finished” was destroyed, as Albert Einstein explained another physical phenomenon. His use of the principle of energy quantum by Planck opened the door for new methods of understanding the subject and ushered in the “new physics” revolution.

These developments ushered in a new scientific age, the effects of which can be seen now in smartphones, laptops and iPads.

Imagine, then, if Planck had listened to von Jolly’s advice and abandoned physics. Imagine if Einstein had surrendered to the same generational conflict. We might still be living in the era of steam trains and carrier pigeons.

This piece was translated from Arabic by Nehal Mustafa.

Final Issue: In Egypt, environmental journalists are endangered species

Steven Viney,Louise Sarant — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:47:00 +0000

This piece was written for Egypt Independent's final weekly print edition, which was banned from going to press. We offer you our 50th and final edition here.

Two months before word about Egypt Independent’s potential closure first surfaced, Noor Noor, executive coordinator of the NGO Nature Conservation Egypt, discussed the loss at stake.

“Egypt Independent is one of the only Egyptian media outlets that allocates staff solely to cover environmental issues in Egypt,” he wrote. “Environmentalists all across the world follow Egypt Independent for news and updates on environmental issues in Egypt. If anything was to compromise Egypt Independent’s ability to cover environmental issues, this would be an enormous loss, locally and internationally.”

Back in 2009, when it made the conscious decision to dedicate an entire section of the newspaper to environmental and scientific issues, Egypt Independent stuck to its pledge to tell every story that matters.

For the past four years, the section’s journalists have reported in-depth on issues relating to political ecology, biodiversity, the preservation of native seeds, the struggles of farmers, habitat destruction, food sovereignty, energy, scientific discoveries, urban planning, solid waste management, industrial pollution, and the controversial drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, while the rest of the Egyptian media has provided cursory coverage at best.

Some of the environmental violations are plainly visible but many other tragedies, such as destructive government policies, are less conspicuous and can easily go unnoticed. While kilometers-long oil slicks floating along the Nile are easy to spot, detrimental governmental policies are often unknown outside of ministerial offices.

Egypt Independent’s small but dedicated environment team has been committed since its inception to bringing into the public purview issues large and small that impact Egyptians and their environment.

One important feature in this section has been the endangered species series. Threatened local flora and fauna such as the African sacred ibis, the Egyptian tortoise and even various medicinal plants were featured to bring attention to their potential extinction.

However, now, as Egypt Independent receives news that this print issue will be its last under the leadership of Al-Masry Media Corporation, the series seems to have turned inward. It now appears that environmental journalism in Egypt has been shifted from the “vulnerable” to the “endangered” category.

Traditional media outlets grant little to no coverage of environmental issues and often treat them as secondary to mainstream political dialogue, as well as the revolution’s demands of “bread, freedom and social justice.”

But, by engaging with environmentalists and spending time with those most affected by environmental issues — often rural Egyptians, who themselves tend to garner little media attention — it becomes clear that environmental issues and political concerns are very closely intertwined.

For many Egyptians, the majority of whom live in rural areas, being able to access clean water, land to farm and resources to build a home, as well as natural resources and food security, are essentially what the revolution was about.

By extension, this leads us to believe access to natural resources is one of the most fundamental human rights issues of our time, regardless of whether the effects are indirect, through wars fought over oil resources, or direct, because hydraulic fracturing has made one’s drinking water flammable.

We believe the majority of Egyptians are less interested in who rules the country than equal and free access to the aforementioned resources required to sustain life, particularly when more than 40 percent lived below the poverty line of US$2 a day under the rule of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2009, according to the World Bank.

Yet many of Egypt’s environmental activists and civil society members continue to voice frustration that a majority of Egyptians and those in power struggle to discern the direct link between the politics of nature — political ecology — and the problems now facing Egypt.

Hence, many environmental issues often fall by the wayside, solely because they are called “environmental issues.”

We believe environmental concerns are not just a luxury for the well-off to worry about, and we work hard to make our readers understand that these issues touch every level of society.

For example, there is nothing luxurious about demanding access to clean water and healthy food. And what is overpopulation, other than an innate awareness that one’s equal access to certain natural resources, essential for survival, is being threatened?

We believe that if issues like these were to be treated and discussed as such, Egypt would be better equipped to address its network of issues holistically. By embracing naturalist ideas, one’s perspective of the commonly referenced but loosely understood issues that appear to be threatening the country, such as economic issues, can be broadened.

Mahmoud al-Mansy, spokesperson of the Sons of the Soil NGO, has fought for farmers’ rights and access to resources since the mid-1990s, when his family fell victim to the common practice of land grabbing. He says the most important aspect of environmental journalism is that it’s dedicated to focusing on contentious issues over the long term.

“Our problems are not stories that appeal to headline journalists,” says Mansy. “There is no story. There is no catchy issue.”

Problems facing farmers are not well-addressed in the media, he says.

“Our very existence from the day I was born is the issue. It is taken for granted that we will remain poor and suffering so the mainstream debate can continue to take place,” he says.

Part of the issue is time, he adds.

“Nobody is interested in covering agricultural land and water issues because it is too time-consuming, and at the end of the day, it won’t sell as many papers as the death of one urban boy,” Mansy says. “But environmental issues are systematically killing our rural youth and destroying our lives every day.”

Ezzat Naiem, founder of the Zabaleen rights NGO Spirit of the Youth, elaborates on Mansy’s point, saying the key ingredient is “care.”

“Although I know in journalism there is supposed to be a professional distance between journalists and the subject matter, covering issues related to the Zabaleen — not sensationally, as with the documentary ‘Zabaleen Dreams’ — requires persistence over long periods of time, with the knowledge that there is little positive gain. I believe this requires real care in the matter,” Naiem says.

Amr Ali, managing director of Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association, has been a strong supporter of Egypt Independent.

“I must emphasize the importance of environmentalism journalism in Egypt, although I don’t agree with calling it environmental journalism. This type of journalism has greatly helped isolated activist groups around the country raise awareness of the important issues Egypt is facing with regard to natural resources — issues that few people were aware of before,” he says.

Ali says the environmental focus helped nonprofits pressure authorities.

“It helped greatly by quickly building public contempt toward certain topics, allowing for groups to put pressure on those responsible,” he says. “However, secondly, and more importantly, is the constant effort of this type of journalism to expose instances of corruption in the most unlikely of places — places that people were largely completely unaware of after the revolution.”

Ali adds that in a country after a major uprising or revolution, “it usually takes years of education to instill within the public awareness of their rights with regard to these resources because it is their national heritage. Egypt Independent was a huge catalyst in trying to fill this void."

Noor says the Egyptian press occasionally has a piece or section dedicated to environmental news, even governmental publications, but the difference between English and Arabic coverage of such issues is that between breaking a story and covering an issue in-depth.

“Whereas, occasionally, the Arabic press will just touch on the news or report a specific event, it has yet to engage in investigative journalism when it comes to environmental issues,” Noor says. “That, I think, is Egypt Independent’s biggest contribution to the local media.”

Irrigation Ministry: Prevent rice cultivation in deserts

MENA — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:15:00 +0000

Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Bahaa Eddin has called for the prohibition of rice cultivation in desert lands, which is already forbidden by law, so as to reduce overdraft of water from aquifers.

“The groundwater went down 2.5 meters,” he warned in a statement Wednesday. “Future generations may not find water.”

His statement came on Wednesday during a celebration of the International Accreditation Certificate ISO 17025 that was awarded to the ministry’s groundwater laboratory in the New Valley Governorate.

“This is the first lab of its kind to win the award despite the logistical and financial challenges it had to face,” said laboratory director Abdel Hamid Ahmed. “It is an important step towards providing a global level of services.”

He added that the laboratory made LE5 million in profits this year from services rendered to the private sectors and individual users.

Edited translation from MENA

Meet Egypt’s 14 year old genius and computer programmer Mahmoud Wael

Steven Viney — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:47:00 +0000

He was sponsored by Microsoft to complete a series of certificates in computer programming. He is one of the youngest people on the planet qualified to instruct university graduates in the programming language C++.

And he is only 14.

But after a few minutes sitting with Mahmoud Wael, it becomes clear that these accomplishments, while compelling, are not a particularly miraculous feat, given the story of his life.

Wael is, literally, a genius, with an IQ of 155, according to the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale. Born in Cairo in the middle-class neighborhood of Hadayeq al-Qobba on 1 January 1999, Wael has been in the public eye, nationally and internationally, since he was about 3 years old.

For readers familiar with intensive computer programming, the notion of a 14-year-old being qualified to teach C++ may be hard to digest. Who is this kid who can teach master’s courses that few people on the planet, let alone in Egypt, can even pass?

Baffled by this knowledge — as well as my own inability to comprehend C++ at the age of 28, even after completing a master’s in physics that included several courses on the programming language — I invited Wael and his father, who accompanies him everywhere, over to dinner.

Wael’s father, Wael Mahmoud, is a pediatrician. He explains that he was trying to teach multiplication to Wael’s older sister, Abela, who was 6 years old at the time and was finding the multiplication tables extremely difficult.

Three-year-old Wael wandered into the room and began reciting all the answers, Mahmoud says. At the time, Wael could barely talk, let alone understand the concept of a number, as he hadn’t yet been to kindergarten.

After going through the entire multiplications sheet — all the way to 12 times 12 — his father ran to the boy’s mother, exclaiming, “A genius! Our boy is a genius! Watch, he knows the whole chart!”

His mother, a biology teacher, brushed off the seemingly exaggerated claim, believing Wael’s number skill to be some kind of weird fluke. But news of the boy’s ability spread quickly, and, within months, news channels were asking Wael to demonstrate his amazing abilities with numbers, bringing him to the attention of the public eye.

Curious about this, I ask Wael whether he can still multiply like he used to.

“I guess so,” he replies.

“OK, then what’s 136 times 141?” I ask.

Wael repeats the numbers in English once, mumbles to himself in Arabic for about four seconds, and then answers: “19,176.”

I pull out my calculator. Case closed.

Wael’s early interviews led mathematicians and psychiatrists to contact his family about giving the boy an IQ test, which he took at age 4. The following year, Wael entered the Egyptian public school system, but, by this time, schools were offering him scholarships left and right, so he was soon moved to Green Land International School, accredited to offer International Baccalaureate courses.

Yet still, Wael was light years away from his peers, who were just starting to learn what 1 plus 1 was.

Despite being a mathematical genius, Wael comprehended English like an above-average 6-year-old. At age 7, the American University in Cairo offered to provide him English courses to allow him to read books to get deeper into theoretical math.

It took Wael three months to learn how to read, write and speak English, and he was even becoming proficient in French. Wael shyly admits he could probably learn any language in about the same time, if he had a good enough reason to.

But during this stint at AUC, another talent of Wael’s was soon recognized: programming. Wael could understand what was going on in the computer science classes he walked past on his way to his English courses.

It didn’t take long for this to receive global attention from the likes of Microsoft. Soon, Ahmed Zewail, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, stepped in, offering the young genius personal advice on advancing his career.

Wael explains that the best piece of advice Zewail gave him was to try and live a normal life and be as well-rounded as possible. Zewail said he once saw a brilliant, science-minded boy lose his mind by neglecting all other academic subjects.

Wael seems to have taken this advice to heart. Nonetheless, he stayed at Green Land International School and aced his classes while advancing himself during his own time, as well as at AUC, where Microsoft sponsored him to take programming courses.

At first, Wael says, other students were not kind to the kid who was better than them at every subject, including English, having learned in three months what others took years to learn. But he says acceptance soon replaced animosity, and he is now treated “just like any other normal boy.”

Tellingly, Wael uses the expression often during our meeting — not something a “normal boy” usually insists upon.

After completing the Cisco Certified Network Associate, Cisco Certified Network Professional and Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert certificates, Wael is now qualified to teach university graduates.

He still rides the bus to school every day, plays football with friends on the weekend and likes to read Roald Dahl’s books, but says William Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies” is one of his favorite books to date. It is clear Wael is set on trying to remain as focused, grounded and ‘normal’ as possible, despite the tumultuous nature of his life and all the attention it brings.

At age 11, he says, the education minister called him to explain that Wael could go to university the following year if he wanted, but he turned the offer down, wanting to continue to grow with the other kids.

When asked if Wael possesses any other unique skills, he says he can multitask exceptionally well. He can listen to television, write computer programs and talk to his mother simultaneously, giving each task equal focus.

Wael seems keen to consistently downplay his abilities, quickly finishing off any sentences that may hint at his above-average intelligence by saying, “and so on, and so on ... .” One minute, he discusses his desire to win the Nobel Prize and how he writes programs in his spare time; the next, he’s shyly looking at the floor, asking where the bathroom is.

When asked about his views on the 25 January revolution, Wael states his support.

“Obviously I am for it, but I do not like what is happening now, nor how people are pointing fingers at individuals to blame,” he says. “But I think if everyone learned to respect themselves and focus on doing their own jobs properly and respecting the rights of others, the country would function properly.”

Wael says he is absolutely dedicated to remaining in Egypt, and to ensure that any innovations, inventions or patents he makes are put on the Egyptian map and not given to anybody else.

I ask him whether he thinks Egypt has the institutions and capacity to push Wael to his highest level.

“Basically, I will take my education in Egypt until I finish high school or reach a ceiling at a university,” he says. “Then, I might travel abroad, or maybe not, to further my education.”

But even if he does study abroad, he says he has made it clear to Zewail and universities abroad that have offered him scholarships — which he has turned down — that anything new he does or creates would be attributed to Egypt. He says thus far, he has no specific ideas yet, but that his goal is to win a Nobel Prize.

Despite there being no Nobel Prize for programming, Wael explains that “it is easy to find a way to attribute aspects of programming to the different award categories.”

Egypt may be very lucky to have given birth to this patriotic genius — or perhaps Wael is lucky to have been born in and devoted to Egypt. Time will tell.

This piece was originally published in Egypt Independent's weekly print edition.

Long-term global cooling ended in 19th century: study

Reuters — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:31:00 +0000

A global long-term cooling trend ended late in the 19th century and was followed decades later by the warmest temperatures in nearly 1,400 years, a sweeping study of temperature change showed.

The study, by a consortium of 78 authors in 24 countries, said its 2,000 years of data made it harder to discount the impact on higher temperatures of increased greenhouse gases due to human activity.

"Global warming that has occurred since the end of the 19th century reversed a persistent long-term global cooling trend," the National Science Foundation, one of the study's sponsors, quoted the report as saying.

Researchers found that various factors, including fluctuations in the amount and distribution of heat from the Sun and increases in volcanic activity, fed an overall change in temperature patterns.

The researchers were part of 2K Network of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program's Past Global Changes (PAGES) project. The research was published online on Sunday by the Nature Geoscience journal.

The National Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation jointly support the PAGES office. The U.S. agency called the study the most comprehensive evaluation of temperature change on the Earth's continents over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years.

The PAGES study relied mainly on analysis of tree growth rings, pollen, skeletons of coral that register sea surface temperatures, polar and glacier ice samples and lake sediments, the National Science Foundation said.

The 20th century ranked as the warmest or nearly the warmest century on all the continents except Antartica. Africa lacked enough data to be included in the analysis.

An abstract of the report on the Nature Geoscience website said that reconstructions of temperature showed generally cold conditions between 1580 and 1880. The trend was punctuated in some areas by warm decades in the 18th century.

From 1971 to 2000, the weighted average temperature was higher than any other time in nearly 1,400 years, it said.

On Egypt's unique assortment of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish

Louise Sarant — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:48:00 +0000

To illustrate and provide scientific information about Egypt’s rich biodiversity and animals, the American University in Cairo Press recently published a series of nature foldouts.

The foldouts, titled “Egypt’s Flora and Fauna,” “Birds of the Nile Valley,” “Ancient Egypt’s Wildlife” and “Egypt’s Prehistoric Fauna,” are written and illustrated by California-based writer and artist Dominique Navarro, who focuses on natural history and is a trained forensic artist. They provide a non-exhaustive but nonetheless fascinating account of the myriad plant and animal species that make Egypt a cradle of biodiversity.

During a two-month excavation of a temple tomb near Luxor in 2011, Navarro began to marvel at the ancient Egyptians’ attachment and reverence to the animals and plants that constituted their direct environment. After digging up hieroglyphic fragments and discovering depictions of birds and animals drawn by ancient artists, and becoming immersed in Upper Egypt’s tantalizing Nile River’s ecosystem, the artist got the idea to start working on the foldouts.

She explains that she was inspired by the way ancient Egyptians found their environment so invaluable that they depicted it in all aspects of their culture, from the architecture to the hieroglyphic writing.

“Egypt is synonymous with desert tombs, mummies, pharaohs and revolutions,” Navarro says. “But there is another side that is vivid and invaluable: the country’s unique and exotic assortment of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish, living everywhere from mountains to lakes to mangrove forests along the Red Sea.”

She immersed herself in research, read extensively about the different creatures that walked Egyptian lands, and contacted local experts to guide her and ensure the accuracy of each of her drawings and texts.

“I spent so much time researching historical texts, academic books, and consulting with scientists and Egyptian farmers that I really feel that, despite the small size of the foldouts, they are a compilation of information and facts that is otherwise difficult to find,” explains Navarro.

“Egypt’s Flora and Fauna” and “Birds of the Nile Valley” — written with John Wyatt, the world’s only ornithologist working full time on birds of ancient Egypt — are the first in the foldout series to be published. To produce the delicately illustrated “Egypt’s Flora and Fauna,” Navarro contacted Richard Hoath, a naturalist, scientific consultant and longtime Egypt resident who is also author of “A Field Guide to the Mammals of Egypt” (AUC Press, 2009).

He tells Egypt Independent that he provided the author with information as well as scientific editing to produce the foldout.

“I was immediately interested in participating in the making of this foldout, as it provides an excellent opportunity to widen the audience for environmental subjects in Egypt,” says Hoath. He explains that the foldouts are accessible to non-specialized audiences as well as younger readers.

“We are currently in discussion to have them translated into Arabic, because one of our goals is to distribute them to all schools in Egypt, private or public,” he says.

Hoath says writing for a younger audience is very difficult: “You need to take complex ideas and boil them down into simple, coherent language while being scientifically exact.”

Navarro is producing the next two foldouts in the series. She collaborated with renowned Egyptologist Salima Ikram for the making of “Ancient Egypt’s Wildlife,” and with paleontologist Matthew Lamanna for “Egypt’s Prehistoric Fauna.”

Lamanna, who is assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, helped discover the sauropod dinosaur Paralititan stromeri in 2001, one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered, in the Bahariya formation in Egypt.

“I absolutely think Egypt’s environment is exceptional, but it hasn’t received the attention and conservation it deserves and needs now more than ever,” Navarro says.

She hopes the Egypt nature foldouts, with their global audience, will make people think about the importance of their environment.

“It is imperative for everyone to educate themselves on the value of ecology, and appreciating wildlife is a first step in that direction,” she says, adding that the potential for eco-tourism in Egypt is tremendous.

Air pollution indoors and outdoors high, threaten health and environment

Rana Khaled — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 08:24:00 +0000

The average Cairene inhales more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution every day, according to the World Health Organization. That means that every Cairo resident’s daily air pollution intake is akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes.

Industrial plants — especially factories that burn mazut, a heavy, low-quality fuel used in generating plants — are the biggest culprits, as they emit large amounts of greenhouse gases that feed global warming. With much of Egypt being desert, seasonal sandstorms also contribute to lower air quality, and the growing number of vehicles adds to the problem.

Aliya Abdel Shakour, who heads the Air Protection Advisory Unit at the National Research Center, says air pollution can be defined as the introduction of chemicals, particles or biological materials into the atmosphere in a high concentration, over long periods of time. Pollution eventually affects the health of humans, animals and food, and can cause discomfort.

“Pollutants can be in the form of solid particles, liquid droplets or gases, and they can be natural or man-made,” says Abdel Shakour.

Winds pass through the Western and Eastern deserts so fast that they can carry significant amounts of dust and sand over long distances, covering Egypt’s cities in a yellow haze.

“These dust storms usually contain silica, sulfate and carbonate molecules, which clog people’s sinuses and can be extremely uncomfortable,” Abdel Shakour says.

The scientist explains that natural air pollutants present a huge challenge to scientists, because they cover huge spaces and are mostly uncontrollable.

“However, planting tall, sturdy trees in residential areas can act as an efficient wind and sand breaker,” she adds.

The growing number of cars, factories and power plants, and the use of old heating methods such as burning coal and wood are considered to be the main man-made sources of air pollution. Cairo has more than 2 million vehicles, which release tons of sulfur, carbon dioxide and other pollutants daily, according to a 2011 study by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics.

Car exhaust fumes contain worrying levels of heavy metals that have been proved to cause cancer.

“We shouldn’t be proud of all the cement and steel factories established by Western countries in Egypt over the past two decades,” says Abdel Shakour, who says these highly polluting industries have ruined the health of workers and nearby residents.

Although applying environmentally friendly processes to factories is costly, it remains a much cheaper option than getting rid of the pollution emitted by unclean factories.

“Under the supervision of the Environment Ministry, Law 4/1994 obliges any factory to conduct an environmental impact assessment even before it’s established,” says Abdel Shakour. “Many international standards have been imposed to guarantee the factories’ commitment to health and safety principles, and a lot of local plants have recently started applying them.”

But the reality is that despite promising new measures to hold the industry accountable for air pollution, the Environment Ministry fails to enforce the laws.

Yasser Hassan Ibrahim, who heads the National Research Center’s air pollution department, says gases, aerosols and dust particles are the main culprits.

He says that air pollution is one of the main causes of heart and lung diseases.

“In addition to causing heart and lung diseases, the particles carry different sorts of heavy metals like lead, zinc, nickel and cadmium, which infiltrate the lungs and increase the risk of cancer,” he adds.

Indoors vs. outdoors

Until the 1970s, air quality inside homes and work environments was neither particularly studied nor a subject of concern. But the outbreak of diseases caused by exposure to asbestos — minerals with insulation capacities and a resistance to heat and chemicals that made them extremely useful in construction — led to increased awareness about indoor air quality.

Indoor air can be of extremely low quality and detrimental to human health, causing a wide range of illnesses, including pneumonia, respiratory problems, allergies and infections.

Heating or boiling food, keeping children in rooms with newly painted walls, and having floor coverings containing formaldehyde — an extremely toxic and volatile organic compound that is a known carcinogen — can pose many serious health issues, Abdel Shakour says.

“Also, using chlorine, ammonia and other chemicals to clean the floors and walls in the bathroom and spraying insecticide inside the home are also very dangerous,” she adds.

Allergies, asthma, itchy eyes, coughing and runny noses aside, the specific health effects of poor indoor air quality depend on what contaminants the air contains, and on how long and to what extent people are exposed.

Most people ignore the fact that household dust consists of a wide variety of organic and inorganic particles that collect in homes, and that most of the dust is shed skin cells, which explains why the dustier rooms in a house are the ones used most regularly. This dust can also be composed of fabric fibers from clothes, sand and soil particles, plant and insect particles, and many other components.

“Houses need to be properly ventilated, especially the children’s rooms,” Abdel Shakour says.

Chronic conditions

Mohamed Abdel Meguid Halawany is a 40-year-old welder. He has been suffering from severe asthma attacks for more than 10 years.

“Doctors told me that my work environment is unhealthy and is causing my chronic disease. Unfortunately, I can’t leave my job, as I have a big family. I will have to work until I die,” he says.

Dr. Ahmed Hany Belal, a doctor specializing in heart and chest conditions, outlines the main diseases that spread because of high pollution rates.

“In general, respiratory diseases are mainly transferred from one person to another by droplet infection, especially in crowded places like schools and offices. Of course, air pollution leads to bronchial congestion and increases the tendency of chest patients to have severe asthma attacks, even if their cases are stable,” he says.

He adds that it is vital that people know the importance of keeping patients in a separate room.

“It’s time to stop the bad hugging and kissing habits we have in our Arab countries. Also, the patient must be alert to some symptoms, like coughing, chest muscles pains, breathing difficulties, fever or weight loss, and must go and see the doctor immediately,” Belal says.

Belal warns of the dangers of using air conditioners without washing filters and having the required regular maintenance checks. Air conditioners and fans can transmit legionella bacterium, which causes pneumonia.

“Raising awareness is our only way to salvation,” says Ibrahim. “It was scientifically proven that air pollution isn’t regional, but a global phenomenon that can spread over extended perimeters and harm thousands of people. Thus, burning large amounts of garbage in one city can not only affect surrounding cities, but also surrounding countries as well.”

He believes environmental issues must be included in schools’ educational curricula to raise children’s awareness about, and dedication to, the environment. Imposing laws isn’t the appropriate solution, he says, because there are many air pollution regulations that simply aren’t implemented.

A 2002 World Bank report estimated that environmental damage caused by pollution costs Egypt US$2.42 billion each year. The country’s gross domestic product was worth just under $230 billion in 2011.

Cairo Climate Talks: Climate change hits nation's poor the hardest

Steven Viney — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:15:00 +0000

Cairo Climate Talks held its 15th panel discussion on Wednesday night, focusing on how Egypt should address the consequences of climate change, particularly in regards to poor urban populations and those living in informal housing.

The inconvenient truth is that approximately 60 percent of Egyptians live in informal and unregistered housing without proper sewage and drainage facilities. This population — which represents the majority of the nation — is at the highest risk to suffer from the adverse effects of global warming.

For instance, as climate change has caused sea levels to rise, flooding occurs, particularly in the Delta region, which has already prompted many residents to elevate their houses several feet off of the ground as a quick fix to the problem.

The altered water salinity levels that are brought on by climate change, as another example, are detrimental to agriculture and food security in a country where water is already scarce. For these issues, there are as of yet no real solutions, or even any quick fixes.

Wednesday’s discussion was called “Getting Ready,” as it was intended to be a first step in publically acknowledging and discussing the issues with all stakeholders — the public sector, research institutions, international organizations and civil society institutions — in order to create a framework for dealing with these issues.

As Saber Osman, a panelist from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) — an agency under the umbrella of the Ministry of Environmental Affairs — humbly admitted on Wednesday night, “there currently is [no framework], and that is why I am here.”

The discussion between these stakeholders comes in light of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest assessment on global warming, which concludes that most of the MENA region — particularly Egypt — is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Additionally, last week, Agriculture Minister Salah Abdel Momen announced that global warming is forcing the country to change its agricultural practices.

Even acknowledging these serious environmental hazards is somewhat of a breakthrough for the government, because, as Osman reiterated many times on Wednesday, “For 30 years we have had a regime that was pretending to address these issues while sitting at their desks. Now that we [the new government] have been handed these very large-scale problems, we are attempting to build bridges and learn from people who have been already working on it for years.”

Flying in from the UK to participate on the panel was David Dodman, a senior policy researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), who opened up the discussion with a brief presentation highlighting what he considers to be the most critical environmental issues facing a country like Egypt, and what solutions they may require. Dodman has international experience tackling similar concerns in developing countries such as the Philippines and the Dominican Republic.

He briefly summarized the major issues in developing countries as: Rapid urbanization in low and middle income communities; very little to no association between the industries who cause climate change and those who are affected by it on the peripheries; how those most at risk are the ones least empowered to address the underlying causes; and the huge challenges to fight this problem for a politically turbulent and cash-strapped country like Egypt.

Dodman emphasized the importance of Community Based Adaptation (CBA), which involves doing extensive research, bridge building between various stakeholders, and determining “what exactly is a high risk area, and what determines when and how third parties should intervene.”

As Osman stated, “We are now aiming to focus on high risk areas and develop solutions.” However, when asked how they determined a high risk area, Osman admitted that he did not know.

Dodman’s concern was that a top-down approach of actively intervening without giving voice to various communities could be quite detrimental. He stressed that Egypt now has a major issue of trust between the government and poor urban communities, and hence the government must strive to rebuild that trust.

The panel was not focused on offering concrete plans of action, but rather highlighting the current problems. Regina Kipper, another panelist who has been working on CBA-related solutions in Egypt for a few years, stated that they are still working hard to develop a framework in which to highlight these issues, and that significant progress has been made in the field following the 25 January revolution.

Sarah Rifaat, 350.org’s Arab world coordinator, added that initiatives such as rooftop gardening, though small-scale, have the potential to tackle issues revolving around food security and access to arable land.

It was clear throughout the discussion that Egypt’s biggest hurdle right now is finding holistic approaches and big picture solutions, which all panelists admitted is next to impossible to push for right now given the political climate. However, what was impressive from Wednesday’s talk, and speaking to Osman following the discussion, is the government’s seemingly newfound commitment to transparency regarding climate change, and how willing they appear to be to listen to solutions.

Hearing public sector representatives answer many of my questions with a simple “I don’t know, but I would like to figure it out too,” was already a breath of fresh air compared to previous encounters with governing bodies who downright ignored that the issue exists.

A good start for Egypt, but there is a very long way to go, and the detrimental consequences of climate change are now to be expected, not just anticipated.