Stunning Difficulties

 

I am continuously “stunned” how so few people link social upheaval, violent surges of angry rebels and utter and despicable acts with global climate change. Turn millions of acres of farmland into dust, disenfranchise and impoverish well over a million farmers and their families, leaving them dangling in the wind and ignore their pleas… Well, it’s easy to recruit these angry souls, create religious blame among vulnerable people looking for answers, and channel anger via manipulative and charismatic leaders. This is the story of just Iraq and Syria. But the same story is playing out all over the Middle East, Africa, Asia and… well… in one way or another, everywhere.

 

The anti-Assad Syrian rebellion was born of this vicious leader’s turning a deaf ear towards well over a million Syrian farmers, their livelihoods decimated by an unending drought in the northeastern part of the country. The fact that these farmers, and the vast majority of Syrians, were Sunnis, and the Assad regime Shiite, was not lost on religious zealots. When the al-Maliki regime (recently replaced) in Iraq, a country with a 60% Shiite majority, began systematically removing Sunnis from positions of power within the government and the military, that same drought that impacted Syria was having a parallel impact on large sections of Iraq, coincidentally in regions that were heavily Sunni.

 

When the United States deposed an Iraqi Sunni-leader – Saddam Hussein – in 2003 and imposed a “democracy,” the resulting “majority” of Shiite wasted no time disenfranchising Sunnis. Baghdad erupted in bomb attacks. Sunnis retaliating against Shiites.  Kurds circled their wagons and ran their part of the country autonomously, ignoring Shiite attempts to govern them. We sat by.

 

The drought rolled in. Disenfranchisement of Sunnis in Syria and Iraq continued. Religious zealots saw the opportunity. ISIL was born. And still, we will not recognize how global warming created both the motivation for the insurgency and provided willing combatants by the thousands. To our policy-makers, it was all about religious zeal and political missteps… But would that religious-political zeal have so strongly resonated with so many people without that climate-change induced drought?

 

Grain production in the region has declined precipitously, and ISIL has seized some of the last large stretches of food-producing acreage as well as structures where sharvested grain is stored. How do you suppose they are using that power? “The group now controls a large chunk of Iraq’s wheat supplies. The United Nations estimates land under IS control accounts for as much as 40 percent of Iraq’s annual production of wheat, one of the country’s most important food staples alongside barley and rice. The militants seem intent not just on grabbing more land but also on managing resources and governing in their self-proclaimed caliphate.

 

“Wheat is one tool at their disposal. The group has begun using the grain to fill its pockets, to deprive opponents – especially members of the Christian and Yazidi minorities – of vital food supplies, and to win over fellow Sunni Muslims as it tightens its grip on captured territory. In Iraq’s northern breadbasket, much as it did in neighboring Syria, IS has kept state employees and wheat silo operators in place to help run its empire.” Reuters, September 30th.

 

We can also see some nasty climate-events in the Western world, particularly as the United States faces the polar vortex, western states droughts and fire, and flooding in places where raging waters were only a very rare occurrence. Our battles have not risen to the level of violent upheaval; instead, most of us in the West are looking for technology solutions, drought-resistant crops, water-extraction systems and prudent new irrigation methods. Australia spent almost $14 billion a few years ago to provide desalinization capacity for its largest cities, all of which are coastal. California is beginning to build that capacity as well.

 

There are still climate change-deniers who believe in deus ex machina – divine intervention – under a belief that the Bible promised no more mega-disasters after the Great Flood and that earth’s natural resources were there for unbridled exploitation by man. Fortunately, even the Evangelical community seems to be turning around somewhat, but there is absolutely no further excuse for believing this is a problem that is just going to go away. We really need to be aware of the consequences… that economic decimation from climate change does result in political instability and even violence.

 

One more giant piece of the explanation puzzle has fallen in place, albeit in the strength of scientific opinion that is not 100% free from doubt. Australia’s fires. “Five groups of researchers, using distinct methods, analyzed the heat that baked Australia for much of 2013 and continued into 2014, briefly shutting down the Australian Open tennis tournament in January when the temperature climbed to 111 degrees Fahrenheit… All five research groups came to the conclusion that last year’s heat waves could not have been as severe without the long-term climatic warming caused by human emissions.

 

“‘When we look at the heat across the whole of Australia and the whole 12 months of 2013, we can say that this was virtually impossible without climate change,’ said David Karoly, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne who led some of the research… The findings relied on computer analyses of what the climate would have been like in the absence of human-caused greenhouse emissions, a type of research widely acknowledged to be imperfect, and which often produces conflicting findings from different groups. But scientists said the results in this case were strengthened by the unanimity of the papers, written by veteran research teams scattered around the world.

 

“‘The evidence in those papers is very strong,’ said Martin P. Hoerling, an American scientist with the [U.S.] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who has often been skeptical of claimed links between weather events and global warming.” New York Times, September 29th.

 

In the end, it is just too easy to look at causes for disruption and religiously-induced political violence on the most basic analytical terms. We can understand these issues. We can deploy military forces and supply arms to our side of combatants, practices with which we are both familiar and comfortable, no matter how costly and lethal these solutions may be. The paths to deal with such issues seem so much easier and more linear than the notion of redesigning almost every facet of human existence, energy generation and usage and consumption waste to deal with that rather clear massive contributor to violent and economic disruption. But not addressing the big picture will only accelerate the problems that have their roots in the Big One: Climate Change.

 

I’m Peter Dekom, and the piper has arrived with palm outstretched.