Moment of Truth..Climate Change And Safety of Delta

Egyptians are used to turning disasters into jokes to alleviate the pain. Recently, the Egyptians turned talks about rains that flooded different areas of Egypt during the past two days into jokes and images.

As the winter season approaches, the following questions are posed “What are the expectations?, What are the preparations?, How can we face these climate changes?, and how can we prevent the recurrence of the crisis that we experienced during the past days?”

Despite the statements of officials that Egypt can cope with climate change and has the ability to avoid damages resulted from the heavy rains, and that all the concerned agencies are ready, but the rains showed that there are no preparations.

The streets in Nasr City, Heliopolis, Ain Shams, many cities and governorates drowned in water and school children and staff returned to their homes at midnight.

However, this crisis showed the courage of Egyptians, their wit and turning disasters into heroic positions and jokes to alleviate the crisis. We saw photos of a cafe and customers sitting in the water playing card and comics of Maadi district preparing to face the crisis with duck buoy.

Climate change has become a reality we are experiencing,  temperatures in the summer season reached 45 degrees Celsius and every winter we face increased rains, floods and snow in some areas.

Rising temperatures and carbon emissions cause imbalances in the world's weather constants, Arctic and Antarctic icebergs are melting, water levels in seas and oceans rise causing  floods and hurricanes.

Egypt is one of the first affected countries, due to floods and heavy rains .. "NASA" announced that a rare tropical cyclone is passing through Egypt from the north, moving to Jordan and occupied Palestine.

Washington Post reported that Medicane Hurricane, which approached the Egyptian coast, is a rare hurricane that strikes the eastern Mediterranean border, accompanied by a storm and heavy thunderstorms with floods in coastal areas.

There are situations in which we must pay attention to the instructions of the meteorology, but there are other situations that we must be ready for them intuitively, such as the safety of water drainage systems, good use of them, not to damage them, keep their maintenance and impose fines on those who damage them.

The weather has changed in Egypt and we need a new infrastructure and networks to drain the rainwater that reaches the limit of floods. we need studies on how to make use of this water, which is a national wealth sent by God to us at a time we are in crisis with the Nile and Renaissance Dam, which threatens the lives of Egyptians.

The scientists should justify whether what happened resulted from climate change discussed at Tokyo, New York, Paris and other UN summits and what is the solution to preserve Delta.

Contributed by Hassanein Tayea