Boko Haram and ISIS Are Cultural Responses to Climate Change

Summary: A study March 17, 2015, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that Boko Haram and ISIS are cultural responses to climate change.

NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites detected major groundwater losses in Middle East between January 2003 and December 2009; red shades = drier conditions, blues = wetter conditions; image credit NASA/UC Irvine/NCAR: "NASA’s GRACE Sees Major Water Losses in Middle East," NASA image article Feb. 12, 2013, Generally not subject to copyright in the United States, via NASA

Boko Haram and ISIS are cultural responses to weather-related disasters from globally warmed climate change, according to a study published March 17, 2015, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The co-researchers base their findings upon geographical overlaps between the incidence of drought and the emergence of Boko Haram in Nigeria and of ISIS in Syria. Cultural responses to the economic and social costs, the group and individual sacrifices can represent perceived erosions of the customs and values that hold groups together. Boko Haram and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria draw upon pre-Western beliefs and practices in landscapes impacted by severe weather-related disasters and worldwide industrialization.

Droughts expose vulnerabilities in ecosystems and societies.

Co-authors Mark A. Cane, Colin P. Kelley, Yochanan Kushnir, Shahrzad Mohtadi and Richard Seager find Syria’s drought from 2007 to 2010 among the worst recorded worldwide.

Rising mean sea-level pressures and temperatures in the eastern Mediterranean Sea give Syria less rainfall, upon which two-thirds of Syria, the coast and the north/northeast, depends. Rising eastern Mediterranean temperatures have evaporative drying impacts upon the irrigation canals, pumped groundwater and soil moisture that provide the remaining one-third of Syria with water. Remotely sensed data by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Tellus project indicate the depleted groundwater that is responsible for drying northeast Syria’s Khabur River.

Model studies judge greenhouse gas increases as responsible for drying and warming Syria.

Syria's Climate Conflict by Audrey Quinn; illustrated by Jackie Roche: EpiphanyOnWallStreet @NineInchBride, via Twitter Sep. 13, 2015

As author of seven books, veteran foreign correspondent and World News Editor for The Daily Beast, Christopher Dickey knows of similar climate pattern shifts in Africa.

Fifty years of falling rainfall levels, rising mean lake-level pressures and warming surface temperatures leave Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria with extreme droughts and over-exploited resources. The severity of the ecological and socio-economic effects of globally warmed climate change may be evidence in the common geography of the four Central-West African countries. Eastern Nigerians and Nigeriens, northern Cameroonians and western Chadians need water from Lake Chad despite shrinkages from 1963-conducted measurements of 9,652.55 square miles (25,000 square kilometers).

Nowadays Lake Chad offers 501.93 square miles (1,300 square kilometers) of water resources.

Droughts prompt not only high imports, low production, nutrition-related diseases and rural depopulation but also the urban over-population of crime, illiteracy, poverty, slums, squatters and starvation.

Researchers and statisticians question whether the horrors of globally warmed climate change can be conveyed in numbers in terms of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Syria. The study’s five co-authors reveal that as many as 1.5 million Syrians may be experiencing tough adaptations to foreign and urban lifestyles because of the super-drought. Christopher Dickey states: “The core slogan of the Islamic State, 'Remain and Expand,' speaks powerfully to people forced off their land and struggling just to survive.”

Globally warmed climate change, unchecked and unmitigated, threatens the Blue Marble’s cultural diversity.

photo by Reuters/Khaled Al Hariri: scroll.in @scroll_in, via Twitter March 9, 2015

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites detected major groundwater losses in Middle East between January 2003 and December 2009; red shades = drier conditions, blues = wetter conditions; image credit NASA/UC Irvine/NCAR: "NASA’s GRACE Sees Major Water Losses in Middle East," NASA image article Feb. 12, 2013, Generally not subject to copyright in the United States, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/multimedia/grace20130212i.html

Syria's Climate Conflict by Audrey Quinn; illustrated by Jackie Roche: EpiphanyOnWallStreet @NineInchBride, via Twitter Sep. 12, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/NineInchBride/status/642865483436437504

photo by Reuters/Khaled Al Hariri: scroll.in @scroll_in, via Twitter March 9, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/scroll_in/status/574944029651132417

For further information:

Colin Kelley @ColinKelley2. 30 November 2015. "Syria, Yemen, Libya -- one factor unites these failed states, and it isn't religion." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/ColinKelley2/status/671526738271191042

Dickey, Christopher. 30 November 2015. "How ISIS and Boko Haram Profit From Global Warming." The Daily Beast > Infertile Crescent.
Available @ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/30/how-jihadist-groups-like-boko-haram-and-isis-profit-from-global-warming.html

EpiphanyOnWallStreet @NineInchBride. 12 September 2015. "#Drought Caused Civil War To Erupt In #Syria." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/NineInchBride/status/642865483436437504

Huber, Alisha. "What Is the Role of Climate Change in the Conflict in Syria?" Upworthy. June 13, 2014.
Available @ https://www.upworthy.com/what-is-the-role-of-climate-change-in-the-conflict-in-syria

Kelley, Colin P. 17 March 2015. "Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought." Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States of America, vol. 112, no. 11: 3241-3246. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1421533112
Available @ http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.full.pdf

scroll.in @scroll_in. 9 March 2015. "Climate change and drought: a spark in igniting #Syria's civil war." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/scroll_in/status/574944029651132417