Drought Helped Spark Syria’s Civil War — Is it One of Many Climate Wars to Come?

[Peacetrain]

Something to think about..

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/06/drought-helped-spark-syrias-civil-war-is-it-the-first-of-many-climate-wars-to-come/

Climate change is already hurting the world’s most vulnerable populations. Those who live in areas hit hard by drought, severe storms or rising seas and can’t relocate because of economic or social factors bear the brunt of our planet’s increasing volatility.

One way the changing climate has already made itself known is through a devastating drought — and ensuing food shortage — in Syria; it created a powder keg, and played a significant role in sparking the country’s civil war. We can expect to see similar scenarios unfold in the future.

[AverageJoe90]

1. I'm sorry, but John Light is wrong on Syria, to a degree.

I'm not questioning that climate change is a problem, or that it can exacerbate long-standing conflicts.
But in this case, although it certainly did it a fair number of complications, the drought was not a cause for the Civil War, even a secondary one. No, it was the years of continued violent repression at the hands of Bashar Al-Assad and his armed thugs that was the problem: if it hadn't been for that, there wouldn't have been a full-blown Civil War in Syria, drought or no drought.

(And yes, I read the article. Again, let me stress that the drought no doubt made things more complicated for the Syrian people. But even without that, the civil war still would have happened at some point.)

[Peacetrain]

2. I agree with you.. but it is a contributing factor undoubtedly

and it is something that will in time affect the United States more and more, as well as all nations to some degree.. you can have all the fossil fuels in the world.. and be as rich as they come .. for a short period of time that is.. but you are nothing without potable water.

This is a coming crisis that will make everything else look like a walk in the park.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Yes I agree climate change was and is a contributing factor, to dismiss out of hand the

added social strain from continued drought and food shortages is foolhardy and shortsighted.

Francesco Femia: Essentially, a massive, five-and-a-half-year drought. From 2006 to 2011, 60 percent of Syria’s land experienced, in the words of one expert, the worst long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago. That, on top of natural resource mismanagement by the Assad regime — subsidizing water-intensive wheat and cotton farming and unsustainable irrigation techniques — led to a large amount of devastation.

Francesco Femia
There are some quite frightening numbers. Herders and farmers in the north and south had to pick up and move. Nearly 75 percent of farmers in the northeast suffered total crop failure. Herders in the northeast lost around 85 percent of their livestock, which affected about 1.3 million people. That was happening before the civil war in Syria broke out.

(snip)

There was quite a bit of displacement happening; millions were trekking into urban areas. Those urban areas were experiencing quite a bit of economic insecurity. Some of that was also coming from poverty and competition from other influxes of people — for example, Iraqi refugees who had been flowing into Syria since 2003, and also Palestinian refugees. These were cities that were already hard-pressed economically.

Thanks for the thread, Peacetrain.