Ríos

EuropaUnión Europea, , ,

Back in the 1980s, when I first began living in Paris, I once had to clamber onto the tiny exterior staircase that surrounds the Eiffel Tower and is used to paint or repair it.

There, hanging out over the city some thousand feet up, I filmed my on-camera segment for CBS about engineering work on the tower. A nightmare assignment for a journalist with acrophobia.

Still, at that time, nothing could have impelled me to risk a swim in that other iconic Parisian sight — the Seine River — not without a full biohazard suit.

And nothing now could get me into the river that has all the romance of One Thousand and One Nights as it winds its magical eight miles through Paris and off into the countryside.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Hotter Climate Demands That We Clean Up Our Rivers for Swimming

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

The mesmerizing scene along the banks of Munich’s lime-green Isar River on a recent summer afternoon made me, an out-of-towner, quiver with envy. Clusters of students, off-duty office workers, families and nude sunbathers were sprawled out on blankets with bottled beer and light meals. Every so often, a swimmer or tuber passed by, carried by the swift current.

In 2000, before the climate crisis accelerated, turning summers into slogs punctuated by a slew of heat records, the city of Munich undertook a sweeping restoration of the Isar, which flows north from the Alps through downtown and into the Danube. The 11-year, $38 million endeavor involved purifying the Isar’s waters, expanding its floodplains and modifying its banks to accommodate the torrential spring snowmelt.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Mogote River in the Aysén region of Chile. Credit Marcos Zegers for The New York Times

MundoAméricaReflexionesNaturaleza, , ,

The rivers of Chilean Patagonia cascade from snow-capped mountains through sheer rock facades and rolling hills, radiating bright turquoise, deep blues and vivid greens. The Puelo. The Pascua. The Futaleufú. Each is as breathtaking and unique as the landscape it quenches.

But these rivers, like many worldwide, have been threatened by dam projects that aim to provide power for distant cities and mining operations. Only one-third of the world’s 177 longest rivers remain free flowing, and just 21 rivers longer than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) retain a direct connection to the sea.

If we are to arrest global climate change, prevent the toxifying of freshwater sources and do right by all those who depend on rivers for survival, we must return more rivers to their natural state.…  Seguir leyendo »

Adel Khedr and his son Ismail at their wheat farm in Tanta. (Jonathan Rashad for The WorldPost)

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

As I chased the fading daylight on a drive north from Cairo toward the Mediterranean Sea, a farmer in a field off the highway beckoned me over with a welcoming smile. I was investigating the problems facing those who work the land here in Egypt’s Nile Delta. The waterway that fed Ramadan Saad’s field was clogged with garbage.

“There is a main Nile-connected canal nearby that is supposed to flow into the tertiary canal around the farm,” Saad told The WorldPost. “But it does not. The tertiary canal here has been entirely blocked by garbage disposal, and we cannot access the Nile water, which is the most fertile for irrigation.”…  Seguir leyendo »