Baghdad’s Newly Opened Skate Park Offers Safe Space Iraqi Youth Have Longed for

An Iraqi skateboarder performs a trick at a skate park in Baghdad on February 1, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi skateboarder performs a trick at a skate park in Baghdad on February 1, 2025. (AFP)
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Baghdad’s Newly Opened Skate Park Offers Safe Space Iraqi Youth Have Longed for

An Iraqi skateboarder performs a trick at a skate park in Baghdad on February 1, 2025. (AFP)
An Iraqi skateboarder performs a trick at a skate park in Baghdad on February 1, 2025. (AFP)

Car bombs and militant attacks are no longer a daily concern in the streets of Baghdad as they were in the chaotic years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, or at the height of the battle to push back the ISIS group.

But while violence has decreased, many young Iraqis say their opportunities remain limited.

Baghdad, a city of nearly 9 million, has seen some efforts to restore public parks and cultural spaces, but urban planning has largely overlooked youth-focused projects.

That may be starting to change.

The capital inaugurated its first skate park this weekend at a ceremony attended by foreign diplomats, sports officials and young athletes, in what many hope will be the beginning of a drive to build more spaces for recreation and creative expression.

“I have been waiting for this moment for five years,” said Mohammed Al-Qadi, 19, one of the park’s first visitors on Saturday.

Al-Qadi, like many skateboarders in Baghdad, used to practice in public spaces such as Al-Zawraa Park and Abu Nawas Street, where skaters were often chased off by authorities, risked colliding with cars and faced safety risks due to uneven terrain and lack of designated areas.

“Before, we were often forced to move or got injured because there were no proper places for us,” he said. “Now, we have a safe space, and I hope this is just the beginning.”

The facility, located within the Ministry of Youth and Sports complex near Al-Shaab International Stadium, was completed in three weeks with support from the German and French embassies.

The project underscores growing international interest in developing Iraq’s sports infrastructure, particularly for activities beyond the country’s traditional focus on football.

Al-Qadi and other enthusiasts are now pushing for the formation of a national skating federation that could pave the way for participation in international competitions, including the Olympics.

“We have 25 male and female skaters now, but with this park, that number will definitely grow,” Al-Qadi said.

The skate park also sparked enthusiasm among female skaters, despite lingering societal resistance to girls participating in the sport seen as rough and sometimes dangerous.

“I hope to compete internationally now that we finally have a place to train,” said Rusul Azim, 23, who attended the opening in sportswear and a hijab.

Skating remains far less popular in Iraq than football and other mainstream sports, but Azim said she believes the new facility will encourage more young people — especially women — to take up the activity.

Zainab Nabil, 27, also came to the opening of the park despite the fact that her family disapproves of her skating.

“I am here to show that women belong in this sport too,” she said, adding, “I hope there will be separate days for women and men, so more girls feel comfortable joining.”

For now, the skate park stands as a small but significant step toward providing Iraq’s youth with a place of their own. Many hope it will be the first of many.

“We need more places like this — safe spaces where young people can be active, express themselves, and dream of something bigger,” Al-Qadi said.



Study Says Climate Change Will Even Make Earth’s Orbit a Mess

In this satellite image provided by CSU/CIRA & NOAA taken 1:10 GMT on Feb. 25, 2025, shows three cyclones, from left, Alfred, Seru and Rae east of Australia in the South Pacific. (CSU/CIRA & NOAA via AP, File)
In this satellite image provided by CSU/CIRA & NOAA taken 1:10 GMT on Feb. 25, 2025, shows three cyclones, from left, Alfred, Seru and Rae east of Australia in the South Pacific. (CSU/CIRA & NOAA via AP, File)
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Study Says Climate Change Will Even Make Earth’s Orbit a Mess

In this satellite image provided by CSU/CIRA & NOAA taken 1:10 GMT on Feb. 25, 2025, shows three cyclones, from left, Alfred, Seru and Rae east of Australia in the South Pacific. (CSU/CIRA & NOAA via AP, File)
In this satellite image provided by CSU/CIRA & NOAA taken 1:10 GMT on Feb. 25, 2025, shows three cyclones, from left, Alfred, Seru and Rae east of Australia in the South Pacific. (CSU/CIRA & NOAA via AP, File)

Climate change is already causing all sorts of problems on Earth, but soon it will be making a mess in orbit around the planet too, a new study finds.

MIT researchers calculated that as global warming caused by burning of coal, oil, gas continues it may reduce the available space for satellites in low Earth orbit by anywhere from one-third to 82% by the end of the century, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed. That's because space will become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature's way of cleaning it up.

Part of the greenhouse effect that warms the air near Earth's surface also cools the upper parts of the atmosphere where space starts and satellites zip around in low orbit. That cooling also makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which reduces the drag on the millions of pieces of human-made debris and satellites.

That drag pulls space junk down to Earth, burning up on the way. But a cooler and less dense upper atmosphere means less space cleaning itself. That means that space gets more crowded, according to a study in Monday's journal Nature Sustainability.

“We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris. There’s no other way to remove debris,” said study lead author Will Parker, an astrodynamics researcher at MIT. “It’s trash. It’s garbage. And there are millions of pieces of it.”

Circling Earth are millions of pieces of debris about one-ninth of an inch (3 millimeters) and larger — the width of two stacked pennies — and those collide with the energy of a bullet. There are tens of thousands of plum-sized pieces of space junk that hit with the power of a crashing bus, according to The Aerospace Corporation, which monitors orbital debris. That junk includes results of old space crashes and parts of rockets with most of it too small to be tracked.

There are 11,905 satellites circling Earth — 7,356 in low orbit — according to the tracking website Orbiting Now. Satellites are critical for communications, navigation, weather forecasting and monitoring environmental and national security issues.

“There used to be this mantra that space is big. And so we can we can sort of not necessarily be good stewards of the environment because the environment is basically unlimited,” Parker said.

But a 2009 crash of two satellites created thousands of pieces of space junk. Also NASA measurements are showing measurable the reduction of drag, so scientists now realize that that “the climate change component is really important,” Parker said.

The density at 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth is decreasing by about 2% a decade and is likely to get intensify as society pumps more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, said Ingrid Cnossen, a space weather scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who was not part of the research.

Cnossen said in an email that the new study makes “perfect sense” and is why scientists have to be aware of climate change's orbital effects “so that appropriate measures can be taken to ensure its long-term sustainability.”