Red Dead
The receding Dead Sea
Ferociously busy at the moment, ahead of a trip next week – I’ve got several stories I want to blog about, but only time now to post this BBC news report from Jordan by Natalia Antelava about the plans to build a Red-Dead Canal, linking the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, and thus (a) providing desalinated water for drinking, (b) exploiting the altitude difference to create hydroelectric power, and (c) pumping super-concentrated brine into the Dead Sea in an attempt to halt the shrinkage.
TV, as always, is restricted by the necessity to provide pictures – even when there’s nothing really to look at – but at least this 3-minute package introduces the issues and talks to the right people, including Munqeth Mehyar, director of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME) in Jordan…
Red-Dead merits a longer post; I will come back to it.
Hi Mathew, all good reading! I see you also spotted the Beeb’s Gaza error on Kate Humble’s journey: ” this is the map the BBC have drawn to illustrate the route. That diamond at the top is the ancient port of Gaza – but, as I’m sure must be known to BBC TV executives, Gaza is not an Israeli city. A simple question: where on this map is Palestine?” I wrote to them about it, but got no reply. BIG mistake.
Thanks, Tony – nice to hear from you. Yes, it was a pity – the BBC programme was interesting, and had some memorable moments, but I think they lost touch a little bit with the detail… and the focus…