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Did Drought Help Bring On Syria's Civil War?

The co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security suggests that the severe drought that Syria experienced from 2005 to 2011 may have had a multiplier effect in the factors that led to the country's civil war.

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Franco Femia, co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security, suggested in an interview with Moyers & Company that the severe drought that Syria experienced from 2005 to 2011 — which led to massive crop failures and population displacement — may have exacerbated the factors that led to the country's civil war. Said Femia: "We still have yet to disentangle the line from climate and drought, to displacement, to conflict. We’re not making any causal claims about climate change causing conflict, but it certainly is what the security community calls a 'threat multiplier.'"

 

 

 

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