A reading titled ‘Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought’ by Kelley et al (2015), in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that discusses how climate change could have caused the 2007-2010 drought that may have led to the civil war in Syria. This article from 2015 first drew linkages between climate change, the drought, mass migration, political instability, and civil war in Syria. In this article, the authors separate the natural variability of Syrian climate from anthropogenically induced climate change and conclude that the warming and drying weather trend was caused due to human influence.
Students will understand how climate change can alter the weather of a region and can cause droughts. Using the example of the 2007-10 drought in Syria, students will learn how global warming can affect food security and even lead to mass human migration. Students will further learn how poor governance, state fragility, unsustainable environmental policies coupled with global warming impacts can lead to the collapse of the state, poverty, and war.Use this tool to help your students find answers to:
