[galago]

These things aren't mutually exclusive. I think there are events that occurred around periods of climate change, which may have caused changes in animal or human migration. This could lead to warfare, or even more simply disease transmission.

[WalterBright]

We've had nearly continuous warfare for the last 2,000 years. I've read a number of history books on it, and none have suggested climate change as being a cause, or even a factor.

[nkurz]

This article (written in backlash to some recent high profile claims of conflicts caused by climate change) suggests that blaming climate for human conflicts is nothing new:

  It’s that they promote a kind of climate reductionism, one 
  that carries echoes of the deterministic theories that were 
  once popular during the second half of the 19th century.

  Consider, for instance, John William Draper’s History of 
  the American Civil War, published in 1867. Draper, who 
  served as president of the medical college of New York 
  University from 1850 to 1873, was a professor of chemistry 
  and an architect of the so-called “conflict model” of 
  science and religion, bringing a scientist’s eye to his 
  task. On the very first page of his book, he announced “the 
  great truth that societies advance in a preordained and 
  inevitable course” guided by “uncontrollable causes.” Chief 
  among these was the climate.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/04/stop-saying-climate-chan...

[nindalf]

You wouldn't ever see "the climate changed so we moved" as a cause here, because climate change takes a few generations to fully manifest. People without written records and good observation tools wouldn't be able to spot or record the climate change. But such people would certainly notice when agricultural output drops and decide to move to places where the situation is better.

Such wholesale migrations have been the cause of many conflicts. Steppe nomads have migrated to Europe on many occasions over the last two thousand years and each time it has led to war. Even within Europe this sort of migration was observed. For example, Julius Caesar fought Germanic tribes who had decided to migrate to Gaul because the grass was greener on that side of the Rhine.

[WalterBright]

Populations regularly outgrow their food supply and migrate. That isn't climate change. They also exhaust their land with poor farming practices, that isn't climate change, either.

[restalis]

"They also exhaust their land with poor farming practices, that isn't climate change, either."

The climate change adepts will argue with you on this one, as human induced (micro)climate change is still considered a climate change.

[Shorel]

1177 B.C. actually mentions droughts as one reason for the Sea peoples to attack the Empires.

It is however not the only reason.

[WalterBright]

A drought isn't climate change. The annual weather is a chaotic system, and a drought for a year or two (or even 10) is normal. Climate change is much longer term.

[orionblastar]

We see climate change affecting the Middle East as it dries up sources of water and forces people to migrate or move to the populated cities that have a water source.

It has also caused a refugee crisis as people can't get food or water and flee their nation to go some place else to live.

It has also allowed terrorists to rise up in Syria and Iraq and take over weakened cities that had water sources dry up and people left unable to defend those cities from takeover by terrorists.

So I imagine back during the Ice Age, people moved around as well as struggled to survive. Some lost their food and water sources and turned to warfare on other tribes to survive. People who hung out in southern Europe where the climate was not too bad had a better chance of survival than people who lived on ice sheets up north.

[jessaustin]

Do you realize that this is basically just apologetics for the reign of W? The reason that there are armed conflicts in Iraq is because USA broke that nation, and the decades it will take to heal have not yet elapsed. The reason there are armed conflicts in Syria is because it's next to Iraq, and also various parties have schemed to weaken the (admittedly awful) incumbent regime. The desert isn't new. It's not as though fifty years ago these places were covered in rain forests. It's not as though ISIS have less need for water than whomever they've replaced.

[w84t1me]

Because the middle east was a sea of peace, social stability and contentment beforehand? The Iraq war was a disaster, but let's not kid ourselves about a simplistic root cause.

[kafkaesq]

Because the middle east was a sea of peace, social stability and contentment beforehand?

Straw man arguments don't help, either.

[markdown]

> Because the middle east was a sea of peace, social stability and contentment beforehand?

Relative to now, yes it most certainly was.

[bprieto]

Except for the Kuwait invasion and Gulf War, and between 500.000 and 1.5M people dead in the 9 years of Iran-Irak war in the 80s, and tens of thousand palestinians killed by jordanians in the 70s, and several Israel-Arab wars since 1947, and Lebanon civil war.

[jeremysmyth]

Time at war isn't the only measure of peace, social stability and contentment in a country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

[markdown]

There was a decade of relative peace in that region before the US went on the warpath.

[danudey]

Not rain forests, but you don't need to be a rain forest to have a water supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_crisis_in_Iran

[PhantomGremlin]

I think this chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iran_Population_%281880-2... might have a tad to do with it.

More people means more demand for water.

[philipov]

And "climate change" is a misleading word to call resource exhaustion caused by human populations outgrowing the carrying capacity of their environment. It's as if the humans are simply passive victims of external circumstances.

[7952]

Syria is a mix of different factors. It has a large proportion of subsistence farmers who are disproportionately effected by climatic conditions. It is reasonable to suggest that food shortages and rising poverty could exasperate other sources of insecurity.

[jessaustin]

Most parts of the world (i.e. outside western europe and certain Pacific Rim nations) have a large proportion of subsistence farmers. Most of those parts do not have Iraq and Syria's problems.

ps. you may have meant "exacerbate".

[jmadsen]

This should not have been down-voted.

Although he may spin it a little further than it is worth, in fact before all the latest events of the last several years started, the Middle East was the area determined to be most at risk of a "major war" specifically because of issues with international water rights, water amounts & the worsening effect climate change was having on it.

It was boring think-tank material, not the stuff you read in the paper every day, but it was a top concern among people who considered long-term policy.

[jermy]

A friend wrote a blog post at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/hannah-griffiths/isis-climat... whilst in Iraq, which refers to the Columbia University paper at http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.full

It's very much a picture of the drought causing people to move to overstretched towns and cities to look for work, and rising discontent with their government as a result. In some areas, mercenary work might be the only paid work available.

[tim333]

Seriously? The refugee crisis is caused by climate and not by the fighting? Seems a bit unlikely.

[Arnt]

You could say that the Assad regime hobbled along, but when that long drought added extra strain, society couldn't cope and everything broke badly.

[cup]

To suggest the Middle Easts problems are a result of climate change and now western imperialism and colonialism is strangely misguided.

[orionblastar]

http://time.com/4113801/climate-change-terrorism/

Not the only factor, but one of the factors.