Whether you personally attribute what is happening to man-made global warming, normal cyclical climate change, or more directly to God’s doing — mankind is undeniably experiencing the results of multiple years of severe weather.
A new scientific study used Syria as a case for what could happen elsewhere. According to Mashable, an online news site, the study,
“provides powerful evidence backing up the Pentagon and intelligence community’s assessments that climate change is likely to play the role of a “threat multiplier” in coming decades, pushing countries that are already vulnerable to upheaval over the edge and into open conflict”.
Water Politics
Thomas Homer-Dixon, professor at the Canadian University of Waterloo, feels other experts have underestimated the drought’s role in the civil war and subsequent attacks by ISIS. He says,
“Without the drought, the mass migration of farmers to the cities wouldn’t have occurred, and without that migration, it’s likely the civil unrest would have been much less severe (in fact, it might not have occurred at all)”.
Everyone agrees the drought was, at the very least, a contributing factor. Food had to be trucked in from other countries. Prices soared for everyone — including the large influx of refugees from next door and those former food producers, both groups typically lacking money to pay for basic necessities like food and rent.
Given that Syria is not the only country, in the Middle East or elsewhere, currently experiencing destabilizing conditions as well as punishing weather extremes, political watchers are speculating about who will be next to go “over the edge”.
Read the entire Mashable article here (note: keep scrolling, it ends with a comment about Yemen)
