“Deep river, my home is over Jordan,” the eponymous spiritual goes. The Jordan River, alas, is not very deep anymore: In recent decades, it has lost a massive 90 percent of its flow thanks to dams and other constructions and now climate change. And it’s not the only flowing torrent that’s now more of a trickle. In the Rhine, the artery of large chunks of European industry, water levels are now so low that global supply chains are under threat. That’s another wake-up call—because if the world is to tackle climate change, we need to move cargo from polluting road traffic to climate-friendly rivers.
This week, the Rhine’s water level near the picturesque town of Kaub—which all ships traveling to the industry-heavy southwest of Germany need to pass through—reached a mere 0.7 meters (2.3 feet). That’s far below the 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) most river ships require as their bare minimum and still under the…
