The Persian Gulf along with the Red and Mediterranean seas are getting saltier all the time because of the waste products of desalination. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman account for 45% of the world’s desalination capacity. And the byproduct of desalination is brine, which is twice as salty as seawater. Even advanced desalination plants produce two cubic meters of waste brine for every one cubic meter of clean water.
The luminous glow of the Milky Way, the galaxy that contains our Solar System, has inspired everything from stories and songs to paintings and poems for centuries. But now one third of the people on the planet – including 80% of Americans and 60% of Europeans – cannot see the Milky Way at night because of light pollution. Nighttime light pollution now covers nearly 80% of the globe.
