Lesson Plan: War in A Warming World

Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.

Step 1: Introduction

Introduce your students to the lesson plan by discussing how climate change can stress the natural resources of several countries and how this can lead to political instability. Use the reading is titled ‘Climate Change, the Erosion of State Sovereignty, and World Order’ by Francesco Femia and Caitlin E. Werrell from The Center for Climate and Security: Exploring The Security Risks of Climate Change.

This resource is available here.

Use the reading to emphasize how human-induced global warming can have significant impacts on food and water security and can potentially cause mass human migrations, political instability, internal conflict, and, potentially, even civil wars. Discuss with your students the section titled ‘The Six Erosions of State Sovereignty’, especially the ‘Catch-22 States’ and ‘Brittle States’ in which the 2007-2010 drought of Syria led to massive crop failure, mass human migration and “accelerated Syria’s transition from relative stability to being one of the most conflict-ridden states in the world.”

 

Step 2: Discuss Climate Change, The Drought and Civil War in Syria

Use two videos to explain to your students the linkages between global warming and changes in weather patterns leading to the most severe drought instrumentally recorded in the history of Syria. Explore whether the drought contributed to civil and political unrest in Syria.

Your students may first watch a short video (5 min) on climate change as a catalyst for the crisis from the Yale Climate Communications series titled ‘Drought, Water, War, and Climate Change’ available  here..

Next, ask your students to watch a video from the Showtime series ‘Years of Living Dangerously’ – a documentary television series on global warming. This video titled ‘Dry Season’ includes segments on droughts in the Southwest United States (reported by Don Cheadle), religion and climate change (reported by Katharine Hayhoe), deforestation in Indonesia (reported by Harrison Ford), and how drought may have contributed to the civil war in Syria. You may choose to have your students watch just the sections pertaining to Syria which are interspersed in the video. The segment on the war in Syria is reported by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times.

This resource can be accessed here.

 

Step 3: Extend Understanding-Climate Change, The Drought and Civil War in Syria

Next, provide your students with a journal article titled ‘Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought’ by Colin P. Kelley, Shahrzad Mohtadi, Mark A. Cane, Richard Seager, and Yochanan Kushnir in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

This resource can be accessed  here.

 

This article from 2015 first drew linkages between climate change, the drought, mass migration, political instability, and civil war in Syria. The authors separated the natural variability of Syrian climate from anthropogenically induced climate change and concluded that warming and drying weather trend was caused due to human influence.

Ask your students to summarize and discuss the main findings of this research article. You may choose to provide them with a short and simpler review article titled ‘Is Climate Change Behind the Syrian Civil War?’ by Dr Dagomar Degroot at Historical Climatology website to further their understanding.

This resource is available here.

 

Optional:

The work of Kelley et al. (2015) is often cited as an example of climate change contributing to civil war. However there has been some debate around their findings. A recent journal article from 2017 titled ‘Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited’ by Jan Selby, Omar S. Dahib, Christiane Fröhlich, Mike Hulme in Political Geography challenged the findings of Kelley et al. (2015). The authors report that they did not find significant linkages between climate change and the Syrian civil war.

This can be accessed here.

You may choose to ask your students to read both articles and to discuss and debate whether there is scientific evidence for linking the drought in Syria from 2007 to 2010 with anthropogenically forced global warming. And if the drought caused large scale human migration, led to political unrest and finally the civil war. You may emphasize to your students the scientific process which often involves divergent views.

 

 

The tools in this lesson plan will enable students to:

1. learn about climate change and security of a country
2. understand the role of climate change in altering weather of a region
3. understand how climate change can cause droughts
4. discuss climate change and how it is affecting food security and causing potential mass human migrations
5. discuss whether climate change can lead to civil war

Suggested questions/assignments for learning evaluation :

1. How does climate change affect the internal security of a country?
2. Did climate change cause the drought in Syria from 2007-2010?
3. What role did food insecurity play in the mass human migration in Syria?
4. Discuss whether climate change and the drought contributed to the civil war in Syria?

If you or your students would like to explore the topic further, these additional resources will be useful.

1	Reading; ‘The Weaponization of Water in a Changing Climate’	By Marcus D. King and Julia Burnell in Epicenters of Climate and Security: The New Geostrategic Landscape of the Anthropocence. Eds.  Caitlin E. Werrell and Francesco Femia (2017) This can be accessed here.
2	Reading; ‘Migration and Displacement in a Changing Climate’	By Robert McLeman in Epicenters of Climate and Security: The New Geostrategic Landscape of the Anthropocene. Eds.  Caitlin E. Werrell and Francesco Femia (2017) This can be accessed here.

 

1	Reading; ‘Climate Change, the Erosion of State Sovereignty, and World Order’	By Francesco Femia and Caitlin E. Werrell from The Center for Climate and Security: Exploring The Security Risks of Climate Change
2	Video; ‘Drought, Water, War, and Climate Change’	From the Yale Climate Communications series
3	Video; ‘Years of Living Dangerously’	From the Showtime series, The Years Project.
4	Reading; ‘Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought’	Journal article by Colin P. Kelley, Shahrzad Mohtadi, Mark A. Cane, Richard Seager, and Yochanan Kushnir in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
5	Reading; ‘Is Climate Change Behind the Syrian Civil War?’	Review article by Dr Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown University on the Historical Climatology website
6	Reading; ‘Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited’	Journal article by Jan Selby, Omar S. Dahib, Christiane Fröhlich, Mike Hulme in Political Geography on ScienceDirect
7	Additional Resources	The Center for Climate & Security
8	Image	https://www.freepik.com/