We've noted before that numerous experts have linked the Darfur conflict to climate change [11], but now a less obvious climate connection to the Syria crisis is persuasively argued by Peter Sinclair of the blog Climate Denial Crock of the Week [12]. As the name suggests, it is generally dedicated to shooting down climate change denialism, but in this Sept. 5 entry he attempts to trace the Syrian explosion—indeed, the entire Arab Revolution—to an atmospheric phenomenon. Sinclair reminds us that in the summer before the wave of revolution swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and beyond, Russia experienced a "1,000-year heat wave" (Bloomberg [13], Aug. 9, 2010) that shrivelled its crops and prompted Moscow to halt wheat exports (Washington Post [14], Aug. 6, 2010).
Sinclar links this to the devastating flooding in Pakistan [15] that year; they apparently both had their roots in a single "blocking event" in the jet stream. It seems "a wave in the jet stream...got stuck in place for an extended period in July 2010, diverting moisture from Russia, and sending it plunging toward Pakistan." (Wired UK [16], Aug. 16, 2010) Sinclair cites Dr. Jeff Masters, science blogger for the Weather Underground [17], as saying "human-caused climate change...may have played a role" in this anomaly; climate models have "found it very likely (>90% chance) that human-caused climate change has at least doubled the risk of severe heat waves."
(Of course, we argue that whether climate change "played a role" is a dramatically wrong question [18]; such phenomena are climate change. We've also noted research indicating that anthropogenic jet stream anomalies [18] are linked to the increased strength of hurricanes in the Western Hemisphere. And we also noted the "peak wheat" fears in China [19] in 2010, which was apparenlty affected along with Russia.)
It seems the entire Middle East had become more dependent on wheat imports following the failure of its own crop in 2008—and Syria was hit particularly hard. Sinclair links to a November 2008 Wiki-leaked US diplomatic cable [20] on the need for emergency aid to Syrian farmers. (That same year, we noted the devastation of wheat crops across the Middle East and Central Asia by a wheat-eating fungus [21].) Sinclair argues that popular misery due to food shortages contributed significantly to the unrest in the following years—and it is certainly interesting to note that the worst crisis sparked by the Arab Revolutions has been in Syria, probably the country in the region most dependent on Russian imports.
Despite relentless attempts by Western media and political leaders to obscure the fact [22], economic grievances animated the protests in the Arab world from the very start—specifically, the December 2010 self-immolation of Mohamed Bouaziz [23], a Tunisian street vendor who had been harassed by the police. Even The Economist [24] of March 17, 2012 noted (in a piece grimly entitled "Let them eat baklava"):
It is sadly appropriate that Mohamad Bouazizi, the Tunisian whose self-immolation triggered the first protest of the Arab spring, should have been a street vendor, selling food. From the start, food has played a bigger role in the upheavals than most people realise. Now, the Arab spring is making food problems worse.
They start with a peculiarity of the region: the Middle East and north Africa depend more on imported food than anywhere else. Most Arab countries buy half of what they eat from abroad and between 2007 and 2010, cereal imports to the region rose 13%, to 66m tonnes. Because they import so much, Arab countries suck in food inflation when world prices rise. In 2007-08, they spiked, with some staple crops doubling in price. In Egypt local food prices rose 37% in 2008-10...
The Arab spring was obviously about much more than food. But it played a role. "The food-price spike was the final nail in the coffin for regimes that were failing to deliver on their side of the social contract," says Jane Harrigan of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.
Sinclair closes by invoking a 2010 Pentagon study [25] finding that climate change will be a source of global instability in the coming years. (The National Intelligence Council [26] and other such elite bodies have issued similar findings.) He remarks:
Now, today, we are in the midst of a national debate on whether the US should intervene in precisely the type of situation that the Pentagon warned about in 2010. So far, the national media have not done a terribly effective job of putting this aspect of the problem in context.
Nope. And we will add a final irony: While we think that left-wing commentators' eternal quest for pipeline conspiracies [27] to explain every US military adventure is especially oversimplified in the Syria case, certainly the proximity of the world's most strategic oil reserves—and the US imperative to keep them in domesticated hands—is critical to Washington's interests in this war. So, once again, the burning of the very resource at issue in the war is each day propelling us deeper into a planetary disaster that will breed more such wars...
Thanks to Eco-Logic [28] for the tip on this story.
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