Now Strive to Pass Water from the Waist

At the end of July in Iran, while it is the peak season for heat and rice harvesting from paddy fields and summer fruits, it is not the season for rain, storms, and floods. However, it seems that for the past couple of years, in the hot and turbulent months of June and July, the drizzle has turned into a massive storm causing human and financial losses. After the severe storm and strong winds in Tehran last June that resulted in casualties, this year, on another hot summer day, strong winds reached the roads, causing a mountain to collapse on the Imamzadeh Davood road, killing several people. The Haraz road was blocked. Various parts of Alborz province suffered damages to parked cars beside scaffolding and unfinished buildings. The storm affected Qazvin, Kurdistan, North Khorasan, Semnan, and Mazandaran, officially reported to have harmed 39 counties and 58 villages. Rivers overflowed, and many houses nearby collapsed. The statistics of the dead and missing vary and are contradictory. Officials, just like last year, shift the blame for weather forecasting and responsibility for natural disasters and public awareness onto each other. However, alongside this flooding and waterlogging and the falling of cars into valleys, some experts speak of the roots of these storms and floods that we have created ourselves. Hamid Reza Mirzadeh, a journalist, blogger, and environmental activist in Tehran, describes the nature of these severe storms: 'The storm in Tehran began with a massive volume of black smoke. A severe dust cloud rose into the air, creating a very terrifying scene. The sky suddenly darkened, and then the storm began to blow. The dust you see in the air is the eroded soil that has risen from the natural areas around our cities, which were once pastures and forests or river and lake beds. This is one of the major and tangible manifestations of soil erosion, in which we rank first in the world. This wind can cause air pollution in cities. Why did a strong wind in Tehran in the past only have destructive aspects? It broke trees, and we never had this much dust in Tehran. Aside from this wind, at least 15 days in the past month, the air quality in Tehran has been unhealthy for sensitive groups, and the only reason for this unhealthiness is the high levels of particles less than 2.5 microns, or the fine dust. Where do these fine dust particles come from? They come exactly from these destroyed natural beds that rise into the air with the slightest wind and enter the cities. We realize these effects when an incident like a storm occurs, and we see a massive volume, perhaps several tons of soil in the air of Tehran, and part of this soil enters our lungs, and part remains in the air.' The residents of Taleqan experienced snow from this summer storm, covering Taleqan in white, causing agricultural products and fruit trees to suddenly experience winter. Floods destroyed a vast area of agricultural lands and rice paddies in the north that were ready for harvest. Hamid Mirzadeh, who has researched this topic, speaks of the fundamental destruction caused by floods and storms in northern Iran. According to him, these conditions have occurred mainly in areas where the ecosystem has been tampered with: 'Not only in Chalus but in many northern cities, in many channels where non-destructive floods used to occur, we now have destructive floods. The northern areas receive a lot of rainfall compared to other parts of Iran, and it is natural that a lot of floods also flow here. However, most of the time when floods are not destructive, it is because of the forest cover that slows down the flood's speed in those areas, allowing a large part to enter the soil and part to enter the rivers without causing destruction. In the past 10 years, we have had terrifying floods in the Golestan National Park area and many other areas. We have had very destructive floods that have never been seen before. On Sunday, we had a very terrifying flood on the Chalus road. The flood entered the path from a point where there was no road in the past. Near Marzanabad, a new path was opened for the final phase of the Tehran-North highway. The flood gained power at the main point and entered the road where we have displaced nature; we cut down the trees upstream, and the street was constructed, creating a very susceptible area for the flood to accelerate. This path has turned into a flood channel. Construction has occurred, and ultimately a change has taken place that has caused this unprecedented flood to flow.' 'Now strive to pass water from the waist, not when the flood has passed over the head.' Investors in the energy sector are returning to Iran. The re-entry of Western companies into Iran was one of the first news after the announcement of the nuclear agreement with Iran and the approval of the resolution in the Security Council. With this news, it seems that a new life has begun to flow in the energy sector of Iran, which had been isolated during sanctions, and the aging and wear of equipment had led to the waste of a large part of it. Investors interested in energy in Iran have found a new destination these days at airports in European countries. They board planes heading to major cities in Iran. Behrouz Abdolvand, a senior advisor to the German Council on Foreign Relations, is one of these travelers at Berlin airport heading for a research and economic trip to assess the status of renewable energy in Iran. Last week, before this trip, he spoke about the impact of lifting sanctions on renewable energies and the environment in Iran: 'Iran shows a willingness towards solar energy. With the developments that have occurred in the Ministry of Energy, wind energy has also received attention. I expect a fundamental transformation in Iran's energy sector within the next decade. We have a lot of energy waste, and I think that with the opening of Iran's doors to global investments and experiences, energy will be one of the fundamental issues of Iran's future economy. Given that millions of jobs depend on it, it is capital-intensive and at the same time specialized. I believe this will be one of the sectors that will transform Iran's economy. Environmentally, considering that Iran has signed the Kyoto Protocol, it will be among the government's programs to unconditionally reduce carbon dioxide levels and invest in it.' The very low efficiency of power plants and the significant waste of electricity production in Iran, the waste of gas, the production of non-standard fuel that increases pollutants in the air, and the inefficiency of energy production and consumption have led the managing director of the Iranian Fuel Optimization Company to state that the conditions currently existing regarding water will also occur for oil and gas reservoirs, and if this situation continues, Iran will become an energy importer within eight years. Behrouz Abdolvand, a professor of international relations at the Free University of Berlin, who has been collaborating with Iran in the field of renewable energies for years, speaks of the necessity of optimizing systems and energy production that reduces environmental destruction: 'Given that Iranian society and government have come to the conclusion that this situation cannot continue, this issue has become a necessity; the electricity sector in Iran needs investment. The future of the country is transforming from this perspective.'