The Intersection of Bullets and Global Warming

Vast sustained droughts in Syria and Iraq – products of global climate change – have reduced once productive farms to dust, depriving millions of farmers and their families of their homes and their livelihoods. The first shoe to drop was the destruction of farms in northeastern Syria, where over a million refugees were forced to abandon their homesteads, migrating for elusive work prospects in other parts of Syria. Except for the cronies of the al-Assad regime, the government was anything but responsive to the “ordinary” victims of this natural disaster. These farmworkers formed the initial backbone for the foot soldiers that started the anti-Assad rebellion.

That same mega-drought gripped vast regions in Iraq as well. Again, millions of displaced farmers now roamed, angry with nothing left to lose. Enter al-Baghdadi and his ISIS forces, channeling that rage into religious zeal against all of the other incumbent powers. Anger, skillfully manipulated by messianic Islamic militants, has generated one of the most disturbing escalations of blind violence and intolerable genocide we have seen in years.

We are also seeing the seeds of sustained drought right here in the United States, but we seem to be somewhat better-prepared and financially better able to provide appropriate resource allocation and economic support to those who have been slammed by climate change. How long can we afford to carry these burdens? I hope that we can for enough time to find scientific solutions and viable alternatives necessitated by this macro-warming trend.

But where else in the world are bullets becoming the “response of choice” to those struggling with climate-change-imposed-drought-without-end? Are there other examples? While we can see pockets of “guns against drought-driven poverty” all over the world (particularly in Africa and the Middle East), there is violent pain in the Americas as well. Take for example that never-ending drought that has strained the lives of farmers in northern tip of Colombia to the breaking point. It may seem like a tiny flashpoint by comparison to the above conflict, but from small acorns grow mighty oaks. And there are definitely more than a few “acorns of anger” being planted in South America.

“Nine people have been injured in clashes between police and residents of Colombia's northern La Guajira province demanding more government support for the impoverished region… La Guajira is currently suffering from a drought and locals say the authorities have not done enough to mitigate its effects on the population… Riot police were deployed to clear roadblocks and remove burning cars… The government says it has done all it can to ease the water shortage.” BBC.com, August 12^th. Some areas in the province haven’t seen rain in two years. 39% of the people also don’t have access to sanitary sewage systems, a fact which amplifies discomfort, disease and, of course, anger.

There are images of state aircraft delivering giant containers of water, intended to slake thirst but of no help to farmers needing irrigation. Located on the Caribbean, Guajira could benefit from massive desalinization facilities, but these are expensive solutions that are not even on the drawing board. Everyone is hoping that the drought is simply cyclical, but that’s what the farmers in Iraq and Syria thought… years later, they reached a different conclusion.

“Angry locals have called an open-ended strike and about 70% of businesses and most schools remained closed on Monday… Protest leader Felipe Rodriguez said that ‘the debt the state owes this province is enormous’.” BBC.com. What happens to large regions of people, literally dying or struggling by reason of a lack of water, when the government says there’s nothing more that they can do? Look around the world and figure it out for yourself. And this proclivity towards ultra-violence is one of those consequences of global warming that world leaders seem to be ignoring. In the end, this “side-effect” just might be the worst consequence from unattended climate change.

 I’m Peter Dekom, and how many wars of religious or nationalistic zeal will be fomented by climate change for which very little is being done to reverse?