One of the most devastating droughts in decades hit Syria and Iraq in 2007-2008. Scientists have linked the drought to climate change. Courtesy of NASA
Hot Zone: Is Climate Change Destabilizing Iraq? -- Eric Holthaus, Slate
This winter was not a good one for farmers in the Fertile Crescent.
A punishing drought hit most of Syria and northern Iraq during what’s normally the wettest time of the year. In the mountains of eastern Turkey, which form the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, snow and rain were less than half of normal. The region has seen one of the worst droughts in decades.
Drought is becoming a fixture in the parched landscape, due to a drying trend of the Mediterranean and Middle East region fueled by global warming. The last major drought in this region (2006-2010) finished only a few years ago. When taken in combination with other complex drivers, increasing temperatures and drying of agricultural land is widely seen as assisting in the destabilization of Syria under the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Before civil war broke out there, farmers abandoned their desiccated fields and flooded the cities with protests. A series of U.N. reports released earlier this year found that global warming is already destabilizing nation states around the world, and Syria has been no exception.
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My Comment: Iraq's problems are far more deeper than not having adequate rainfalls for the past few years. Sighhh ..... this is so typical of the global-warming fanatics in the main stream media trying to push their agenda .... while conveniently ignoring the fact that conflict in this region has been an ongoing affair for centuries (if not longer).
2 comments:
Most of the hot air is in the media.
They're monomaniacs. That said, climate is not irrelevant to what's happening in Iraq - certainly anything that interferes with agriculture is a contributing factor to social tensions, which make it a breeding ground for militants.
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