Is Climate Change Behind the Syrian Civil War? | Hacker News Reader

Is Climate Change Behind the Syrian Civil War?

historicalclimatology.com

30 pointsThevet19 comments

Just don't look at the policy behind the curtain!

https://sites.google.com/site/onedemocraticstatesite/archive...

"This is a key reason that WikiLeaks’ publishing of U.S. diplomatic cables was so important."

"A December 13, 2006 cable [1], “Influencing the SARG [Syrian government] in the End of 2006,” indicates that as far back as 2006 – five years before “Arab Spring” protests in Syria – destabilizing the Syrian government was a central motivation of U.S. policy."

Accidentally, also before the drought.

Who didn't have a policy of destabilizing Syria? Besides the Great and perhaps the Little Satan, many Sunni entities, right? With the Kurds and Turks as an additional wildcard.

At the very least, Assad's only allies right now are Russia and various Shia groups willing to work with the Alawites, specifically Hezbollah, various Iraqi Shia, and Iran....

The quote was about "destabilizing Syrian government" not simply "Syria."

And the important point is: five years before the protests.

U.S. happens to be the only remaining superpower, so others aren't that relevant, especially to understand why Obama insisted so long that "Assad must go" and why the "moderates" are "supported" or "trained."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpower

The original paper [1] is more interesting to read.

"Whether it was a primary or substantial factor is impossible to know, but drought can lead to devastating consequences when coupled with preexisting acute vulnerability, caused by poor policies and unsustainable land use practices in Syria’s case and perpetuated by the slow and ineffective response of the Assad regime (13)"

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.full.pdf

Comic: http://yearsoflivingdangerously.tumblr.com/post/86898140738/...

its like literally peaking into the future

May. 26 2014

Not like the drought is limited to the Syrian border. Israel is their neighbor and they have been doing fine through the drought (the non-occupied part that is, still sucks to be Palestinian) because they had the foresight to build desalination plants: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/science/.premium-1.659949 Like wine yards in the middle of a freaking desert: http://www.israel21c.org/winemakers-revive-ancient-negev-win... So maybe it is climate change's fault, maybe it is stupid politicians not investing in the infrastructure their people need...

Syria's government is pretty indefensible, but its also worth noting that their GDP was approximately a third of Israel's before the civil war began [1]. In most circumstances, climate change primarily effects the poorest- which is viciously ironic, since they typically had the least to do with bringing it about.

[1] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

While I don't remember any serious evidence behind a bit of what you can legitimately call "right wing propaganda": when the Arab "Spring" started it was proposed that one of the causes was how US policy of burning food as fuel (corn ethanol) was driving up world food prices. This was in reference most especially to Egypt, which has to import half its calories.

To the extent there may have been a secular increase in the price of basic grains at the same time all this was happening through Syria, it's worth considering.

But in general, we have less war in the world now than 60 or even 30 years ago. So either there is no negative climate change, or this theory is far from perfect.

I don't get the connection. Nobody is claiming that all wars in the last 30 to 60 years are due to climate change.

There are obviously multiple factors with greater and lesser incidence depending on the times. It's also true that we have far better irrigation methods than before and drought-resistant crops. But that doesn't do much against the worst of climate change.

There's historical precedent. The reason the American Revolution was in Massachusetts was that Boston was full of apprentices sent in from the countryside. Young men, barely paid, under pressure, and fully aware that of 7-8 apprentices in a house, only one can succeed the master. And at the age when men think with their dongs.

I don't see that the article mentions explicitly: the population of Syria was 9 million in 1980, 12 million in 1990 and 20 million in 2010. So there were certainly a lot of young people, including young men.

I didn't know Syria's population grew so much in that last 30 years. The effects a nearly completely stagnant economy must have been really compounded by that.

From Wikipedia:

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

This idea of climate change causing the Syrian civil war has been making the rounds on various social media sites, and reeks of propaganda. Even the slightest bit of research peeling back the history of events in Syria will show that the war is mainly due to influence by external parties.

Syria became seriously unstable after having the largest drought in history. That has obvious political and social consequences.

So no, what climate change does is create the conditions for greater sensibility to the external actors' influence. There's nothing disputable in that assertion.

Right, and the Benghazi attacks were the result of a video and if you like your doctor, keep your doctor.

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