The Aral Sea Disaster

The Aral Sea stands as one of the monstrous environmental catastrophes of the 20th Century.

Before 1960, it was the world's fourth largest inland sea – behind Asia’s Caspian Sea, North America’s Lake Superior and Africa’s Lake Victoria – with an area of 68,000 km². It had a vibrant fishing industry employing 40,000 people. Today discarded fishing boats lie on the sand 20 kilometers from shore.

In the 1950’s and 60’s Soviet engineers began diverting its two major inflowing rivers to irrigate cotton fields. As a result Uzbekistan has become one of the world’s major cotton producers. But this drawdown had a disastrous result as the sea lost most of the inflow of its source waters. The mighty Aral Sea began shrinking – and shrank steadily until, in 2004 it was only 25% of its original surface area, and by 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size.

Partnering with the Creator

The Garden of Eden story in Genesis 2:5-15 illustrates how we human beings were created to serve our Creator as partners-in residence.

The narrator notes two critical agents necessary for sustaining a fruitful landscape – the human and the divine, the gift of rain and the effort of grounds-keepers. Ecology is a partnership in which the Creator initiates and the human creature responds and both depend on the other. The Creator won’t initiate the process until his partner is ready.

As the Deer

Thirst is a powerful motivator.

Our bodies are 70% water, but since we’re always depleting our water supply to the functions of cooling, cleansing and even breathing, we can't go long without a drink. On average we need 2.5 litres a day - ten cups - usually more in the summer. It’s a compelling need.

When you’re healthy, your body regulates your fluid balance quite nicely. If you drink more water than you need, your kidneys dispose of the surplus. But if the fluid balance drops, your body sends signals. A 2% short-fall and you know you’re thirsty; a 5% deficit makes you confused and groggy; by 8% your muscles spasm, and 15% is pretty much fatal.

World Water Day - Imagine This!

Tomorrow, March 22, is the UN's annual World Water Day. This year's theme is "Water for Cities". 1000 delegates from 66 countries are gathered at a UN conference in Cape Town to address issues related to water, poverty, politics and urban issues.

The Bible describes a magnificent urban river scene in the last chapter of Revelation – a dazzling river with crystal clear water flowing down the middle of a great avenue.

The river flows from the throne of God which tells us that God loves this city* and sustains it as a place of refuge* and safety and where its citizens are being spiritually renewed* and nourished. Jesus is the spring of living water for the thirst and cleansing of the world.

Noah Part 4 - Fresh Takes on the Old Story

The story of the Great Flood is powerful and timeless. Every generation hears its echoes in the upheavals, urgencies and opportunities of their own day.

I wonder how its ancient melodies sound in our 21st Century ears?

According to Peter, Jesus’ apostle and water-walking protégé, the climactic event of human history was the coming to earth of Jesus to save his doomed creation. He was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan, but he spoke cryptically of another ‘baptism’, when he was engulfed by the flood of God’s judgment against sin. On the cross, he embraced that deadly torrent as God’s truly Righteous One, suffering to rescue the unrighteous ones and rising from death to give us living hope!

Noah Part 1 - Flood Story / Love Story

Many cultures of the world have stories of mythic proportions about a flood that virtually annihilates human civilization. Cultures as far apart as Scandinavians and Polynesians, Australian aboriginals and American Navajo, Celts, Mayans and Thai all tell a story of a great inundation.

The story of Noah is quite literally a watershed event in the Biblical narrative. (Genesis 6-9)  It is catastrophic - human and animal populations are all but destroyed. It is like a reversal of creation – the unmaking of earth. How are we to understand this devastating over-whelming of the earth?

No Shortage of Water

Moses sounds like a travel agent. . . After leading his people across the desert to the threshold of the Promised Land, he gives them a glowing description of the land before them.

The LORD is bringing you into a good land--a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills. Deuteronomy 8:7

It is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it. Deuteronomy 11:11-12

After forty years in the dry desert this sounded like paradise - rain-water, ground-water and surface water in abundance, streams and pools and springs - a farmer’s paradise for sure - and a hydro-geologist’s dream.

Let Justice Roll Down

In Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963, he quoted the Hebrew prophet Amos when he said “we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Amos and MLK both lived in prosperous nations who were proud of their religious heritage. Both were appalled at how religion so often masked hearts of greed and hostility.

Amos roars out God’s disgust over religious piety:
I hate, I despise your religious feasts
Away with the noise of your songs.
Amos 5:22 NIV
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
Amos 5:24 The Message

Amos believed that justice was the life-blood of society as water is life for the land.

Land and Sea

“God said, ‘Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.’”

Genesis 1:9

Photo Credit: Distantpeak.com

It’s the second dazzling water event in the great Genesis Song of Creation – the emergence of the earth out of the Sea at the voice of God - the transformation of a featureless ocean into a sculptured landscape!

Antrim Coast Northern Ireland

Imagine the forces that came into play that day, as tremors ripped through the earth’s crust, trenches gashed the sea-floor, hollowing out deep marine basins - and elsewhere giant crags of land thrusting up through the surface of the sea, catching the glint of the sun.

The dry land gives us a place to stand, to build and grow. The earth buffers us from the ocean waves, yet it drinks in the rain and holds enough water to sustain grasslands and cedar forests. Trees and people need to be rooted, as do cities and civilizations. We need the land just as we need water.

► Day One gave us Light;
► Day Two, Air and Sky;
► Day Three divided Land from Sea.

What Really Made the Nile Turn Red?

It was the first of the Ten Plagues – and it wasn’t pretty. The great River was bleeding and undrinkable. In a land with no rain, people were desperate. It was an ecological disaster – and it became even worse.

Hungary's Red Sludge
Photo Credit: Newscom

There were no industries to blame – no BP Oil Spill, no Hungarian Alumina tailings leak. This was a natural disaster with serious religious undertones.

Scientifically, there are various perfectly natural explanations. The Nile normally floods every year in late summer. If the annual flood were excessively high, it may have brought microorganisms such as Pfiesteria piscicida which could redden and poison the river and cause conditions that would kill the fish. Epidemiological theories and counter-theories abound.