May 30, 2013 – We are offered so little worthwhile analysis by American mainstream media. I had understood that the civil war in Syria was an outgrowth of the Arab Spring – an apparently spontaneous demand for freedom from previously abject populations. After reading Joe Romm’s article Syria Today is a Preview of Memorial Day 2030 , I’m convinced the Arab Spring was a catalyst, and nothing more. Romm quotes from a Tom Friedman article, Without Water, Revolution : “The drought did not cause Syria’s civil war,” said the Syrian economist Samir Aita, but … the failure of the government to respond to the drought played a huge role in fueling the uprising … after Assad took over in 2000 he opened up the regulated agricultural sector in Syria for big farmers, many of them government cronies, to buy up land and drill as much water as the...
Understanding the global-warming world: causes and ramifications.