Egypt faces rising sea levels.
Dr. Suzan Kholeif of Egypt's National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries states that climate change in the Middle Eastern country is already occurring at an unprecedented pace.

Rising sea levels in Egypt's second largest city, Alexandria, have caused beaches where some residents played as children, to completely disappear. In Rosetta, more than 58 meters of coastline have vanished every year since 1989. In addition, while entire communities in Alexandria and the fertile Nile Delta are in danger of being displaced by flooding, an even bigger concern may be the contamination of groundwater as salinity from the ocean intrudes into underground reservoirs.

In a country where food prices have already sparked unrest, officials say salt water could begin quickly contaminating agricultural land. Current forecasts of a rising Mediterranean could affect the more than half of Egypt's residents who live within 100 kilometers of the coast.

Despite the nation's overall greenhouse gas emission levels being lower than 0.6% of the global total, the Egyptian government is making efforts to decrease them, with officials carrying out regular inspections of industrial areas.

We thank Dr. Kholeif and colleagues for this update on the climate- related predicament being faced by the Egyptian people. Our prayers that all the world's citizens act in unison to swiftly adopt planet-saving lifestyles.

During an October 2009 videoconference in Indonesia, Supreme Master Ching Hai spoke of the potentially tragic consequences of climate change, while highlighting the quickest route to avert them.

 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6AA2D2.htm