On the subject of the Middle East, two things come to mind: oil and sand. Oh, and Jennifer Aniston giving up her first-class cocoon on Emirates Air for a middle seat between two kids playing video games.
So why is Dubai importing sand?
Air and water are the only natural resources we use more of than sand. Sand is the essential ingredient in concrete. Almost every building is made at least partially out of concrete. In one year we use enough concrete to build a wall around the equator, twenty meters high and twenty meters wide. The windows in those buildings are made from sand, as are the asphalt roads we drive on.
We’re learning that clean water and air are not in limitless supply. Guess what? We’re running out of sand, too. Desert sand, shaped by wind, is too round and does not work well for construction. The rough edges on sand produced by water are necessary for concrete. To erect its skyscrapers, Dubai needs sand from riverbeds, beaches and floodplains. It imports sand from as far away as Australia. Over the past decade, more than twenty Indonesian islands have disappeared, most of them, sand that is, going to Singapore. Wildlife, coral reefs, forests, bridges and other infrastructure, have suffered.
The worldwide demand for sand is so great, that illegal sand mining has proliferated. Government officials and activists confronting black-market operations have been met with violence.
Desert sand, largely useless, will be in abundant supply for the foreseeable future.
