really offsets
james Fallows be doing a series I love love
have questions about the Syrian by getting involved in Syria
and he posted
email that I got from William Paul who was a
State Department a.m. official
in the kennedy administration and
he among the other things to talk about it's fascinating pieces along regis read
it but one other things the
mentions which has far as I can tell gotten
no 0 media coverage
in contextualizing all this I
he writes serious been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to
Syria with a vengeance
now understand we have been hearing
and we know that the pentagon
views climate change want the the top security threats at this country faces
going forward in the future
we have heard about the you know
how dismay impact a.m.
you know domestic politics insofar as it were talking about
wildfires were talking about more money for
extreme weather and things like sandy Katrina we could be losing
a Miami in the next 20 30 40 years I
the other way that is going to affect this country
if it's not enough for you to
appreciate how devastating climate change is going to be in terms of
I creating droughts
and refugees around the world
I and what it may do just to our civilization writ large by the end of
the century
understand that is going to directly implicate the United States in terms of
love
the way the about warmer and
in spending money and all of it in this is a perfect example
drought devastated the country from 06 2002
2011 desperate for waters farmers began to tap ako fire
aquifers with 10th thousands of new wells but as they did the water table
quickly dropped to a level below which their pumps could left
in some areas all agriculture ceased
in others crop failures reach 75 percent
and generally as much as eighty-five percent
%uh livestock died of thirst or hunger hundreds of thousands a serious farmers
gave up
they abandon their farms they headed to the cities and towns
to look for non-existent jobs creating
I food supply or shortages
creating overcrowding in the cities creating more social pressure
outside observers including UN experts at the time estimated that between two
and three million of Syria's 10 million rural inhabitants
were reduced to extreme poverty Syrian domestic
refugees found that they had to compete not only whether
for scarce food water and jobs but with already existing form refugee population
there's a quarter million palestinians about 200,000 people have fled the
occupation of Iraq in Syria
the senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization representative in Syria at
that time turned to US
a program for help terming the situation a perfect storm
in November 08 he won the Serie A face social destruction
he noted the Syrian Minister for Agriculture stated publicly that the
economic social fallout from the drought
was beyond our capacity as a country to deal with USA director commented that we
question whether limited USG
government resources should be directed toward this appeal at this time in other
words
I am we had no money the support that appeal
it was downgraded as a priority
and/or there was political pressure to make serious offer
lowered by the high price of wheat on the world market
according to the US Department of Agriculture serious sold 1500 metre
F-fifteen
sorry 1.5 million metric tons
up their wheat reserves twice that they had in 2005
the next year had little to lull left export in 2008
the rest should write years it had to import more week keep its is in fed
obviously creating financial duress
so your first to this is the tender box
and when a small group gathered in the town of Darra to protest against
government failure to help them
the whole thing exploded Baccano and an 11 and obviously
also part love the Arab Spring which you know as we mentioned
with I am Matt duce
was also a function of economics but in this case it was economics
the where the situation was exacerbated by global climate change
and it's not hard to see the paradigm here that's being set up
global climate change crazies creates a
situations on the ground that destabilizes countries all around the
world
we end up getting drawn into conflicts that
end up being far over the most basic coverage sources
food water shelter
so the idea that this is not being contextualize in this way is doing a
great disservice
to the country and to the policy pursues in the future
because eeee it again
does not reveal what is such a massive problem
now and looming in our future
so every time we hear Syria there should be some commentators saying
how could we pass Keystone XL with this
every time we hear serious somebody should be saying how can we not be
addressing climate change
in our own country and using at as to send a message
to the rest of the world text