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