How Climate Change Sparked Syria's Civil War

May 8, 2015 12:43 PM

How Climate Change Sparked Syria's Civil War
posted by Nevin (6 comments total)

I could tell the revolution was coming, especially in the south, in 2004 and I was just some total schmuck tourist. My dad started meeting with high level intelligentsia, with introductions from Assad's hand selected Grand Mufti, in 2006 who nearly immediately told him that they were actively planning for a post Assad era. If the cited experts didn't see it coming then they were either looking in the wrong direction or were asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. I'm sure climate played some role. I also know revolution comes when ramadan starts falling in the summer months, so it couldn't have helped, but in this case correlation is not the whole sum of causation.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:09 PM on May 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Thank you for posting this. Wish everyone would read it.
posted by kinnakeet at 1:45 PM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Whiskey is for drinking, and water's for fighting.

They don't have much whiskey in Syria.
posted by ocschwar at 4:38 PM on May 8, 2015

Just the beginning...
posted by BlueHorse at 9:18 PM on May 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

10th Regiment: yeah, Ramadan in summer is a great way to get a very large number of people to just lose it completely. No food, no water, no smokes, 14 hours a day, it's hot, everyone's getting on your nerves, you're getting on everyone's nerves. And so on. But most of us return to our senses after flipping out. How many summertime Ramadans in the Middle East actually caused a regime to topple?

But this drought meant a lot of people in Syria no longer had anything left to lose. Your farm is nothing more than a house surrounded by dust. You're sleeping rough in a city. You've lost it. Now what?

I'd call that significant.
posted by ocschwar at 11:48 AM on May 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

From the Jerusalem Post: Is the regional water crisis a bigger problem than Islamic State?

[...] Pipes said that Iran’s Lake Urmia, the largest lake in the region, has lost 95% of its water since 1996.

In Yemen, where a civil war is raging, drinking water “is down to less than one quart per person per day” in many mountainous areas, he said, citing water expert Gerhard Lichtenthaeler.

In Iraq, “The April 25 seizure of the Tharthar Dam and opening of one of the dam’s gates demonstrates the growing prioritization of water infrastructure in Islamic State’s strategy,” wrote Micah Zenko on the Council on Foreign Relations website last week.

posted by Joe in Australia at 4:00 PM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]