Israel's environmental issues Essay

Imagine the year 2059, you walk outside of your home and look around to what once was a spacious, airy atmosphere. You look around once more only to be surrounded by 15.6 million people. The roads are congested with individuals and there is absolutely no room for any species but humans. The world becomes more violent and unpleasant to live in and moving from one location to another becomes unsafe. This is the type of world Israel could see in the future.
As many of you have heard, Israel's population has grown from 800,000 people to 8.5 million in 68 years. At this rate, Israel's population could potentially reach 20.6 million in a high case scenario. Israel has the highest birth rate in the developed world and the average Israeli woman will have three children, which is nearly double the fertility rate of the industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development. Professor Erle Ellis of the Geography and Environmental Systems Department of the University of Maryland wrote, "While the country's secular Jewish and Arab populations have experienced a steady decline in birthrates, the fertility rate of the country's ultra-Orthodox Jewish population has barely receded at all." (Zafrir, 2016). Many ultra-Orthodox families live in populated areas and use public transportation much more than the typical Israeli.
Israel's environmental issues have been on the rise with the population. As the population increases in Israel, the environmental issues only become greater. Water and air pollution are two of many environmental problems occurring in Israel. These are primarily caused by industrial and automobile emissions and chemical industries that have been discharging their raw industrial wastes directly into the rivers. Another concerning issue is the water shortages According to the World Weather and Climate website, Israel is a semi-arid country and has long, hot and dry summers with short, cool to warm winters. In some cases, rainfall has been recorded not to fall for six months in a year. Can you imagine going six months without seeing rain here in Michigan? Israel has been known as a country that practices water conservation, as well as developing the drip irrigation method. Recently, Israel has been using increased amounts of water per person and many of Israel's main water sources are expected to continue to decline, which could potentially threaten drinking-water quality. One major result of the water shortages in Israel is the rapid decline of The Dead Sea. The Dead Sea depends on the fresh water of the Jordan River this river was once-wide and has become just a polluted dribble as water has been abstracted mostly for agricultural and many other uses. Cambridge University professor Stephan Emmott published a book called "Ten Billion," which features predictions regarding the consequences of world population growth including one that states, "humans will need to triple their energy production capacity by the end of the century to meet their needs. That will require building more than 1,500 major dams and 14 million wind turbines." (Zafrir, 2016)