Let Them Drown: The Violence of Othering in a Warming World

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/37214-let-them-drown-the-violence-of-othering-in-a-warming-world

In his latest book, The Conflict Shoreline, the Israeli architect Eyal Weizman has a groundbreaking take on how these forces are intersecting.[†] The main way we’ve understood the border of the desert in the Middle East and North Africa, he explains, is the so-called ‘aridity line’, areas where there is on average 200 millimetres of rainfall a year, which has been considered the minimum for growing cereal crops on a large scale without irrigation. These meteorological boundaries aren’t fixed: they have fluctuated for various reasons, whether it was Israel’s attempts to ‘green the desert’ pushing them in one direction or cyclical drought expanding the desert in the other. And now, with climate change, intensifying drought can have all kinds of impacts along this line. Weizman points out that the Syrian border city of Daraa falls directly on the aridity line. Daraa is where Syria’s deepest drought on record brought huge numbers of displaced farmers in the years leading up to the outbreak of Syria’s civil war, and it’s where the Syrian uprising broke out in 2011. Drought wasn’t the only factor in bringing tensions to a head. But the fact that 1.5 million people were internally displaced in Syria as a result of the drought clearly played a role. The connection between water and heat stress and conflict is a recurring, intensifying pattern all along the aridity line: all along it you see places marked by drought, water scarcity, scorching temperatures and military conflict – from Libya to Palestine, to some of the bloodiest battlefields in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But Weizman also discovered what he calls an ‘astounding coincidence’. When you map the targets of Western drone strikes onto the region, you see that ‘many of these attacks – from South Waziristan through northern Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Iraq, Gaza and Libya – are directly on or close to the 200 mm aridity line.’ The red dots on the map above represent some of the areas where strikes have been concentrated. To me this is the most striking attempt yet to visualise the brutal landscape of the climate crisis. All this was foreshadowed a decade ago in a US military report. ‘The Middle East,’ it observed, ‘has always been associated with two natural resources, oil (because of its abundance) and water (because of its scarcity).’ True enough. And now certain patterns have become quite clear: first, Western fighter jets followed that abundance of oil; now, Western drones are closely shadowing the lack of water, as drought exacerbates conflict.

<snip>

We need to understand that what is happening on Nauru, and what is happening to it, are expressions of the same logic. A culture that places so little value on black and brown lives that it is willing to let human beings disappear beneath the waves, or set themselves on fire in detention centres, will also be willing to let the countries where black and brown people live disappear beneath the waves, or desiccate in the arid heat. When that happens, theories of human hierarchy – that we must take care of our own first – will be marshalled to rationalise these monstrous decisions. We are making this rationalisation already, if only implicitly. Although climate change will ultimately be an existential threat to all of humanity, in the short term we know that it does discriminate, hitting the poor first and worst, whether they are abandoned on the rooftops of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina or whether they are among the 36 million who according to the UN are facing hunger due to drought in Southern and East Africa.

[Ghost Dog]

1. By Naomi Klein, The London Review of Books 02 June 16

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n11/naomi-klein/let-them-drown

Reading, thanks. Here's the map referenced:



(Nb. Mercator projection: not to scale.)

[hatrack]

2. And when the line reaches Turkey, or Greece, or Italy, or Spain?

I will fearlessly predict that our flexibility in classifying large groups of people we will never meet will indeed be up to the task!

[happyslug]

3. Spain, Italy and Greece are in the temperate zone

Last edited Mon Jun 6, 2016, 12:51 AM - Edit history (1)

The arid line is one drawn in the "Tropics". In the northern tempered zones, weather moves west to east. In the southern tempered zone, weather moves east to west. In the Tropics weather tends to stay local, very little movement east or west or north or south.

Now the currents will move weather from tempered regions to the tropics, Thus the monsoons of Africa, India and south Asia. The monsoons are driven by the fact of the huge temperature differences between the Sahara and Arabian Deserts (and India's hot weather) and the cold temperature of Antarctica.

In the Mediterranean area, the monsoon does not reach, thus the rain that falls, falls near the source of the water for the rain. Thus the arid lines around North Africa and the Middle East. South of the land is desert, except for Egypt which gets little rain but gets water for crops from the Nike. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers do the same for Iraq. The Nile following from where the Africa Monsoons leave a lot of water, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers following from Asia Minor where the water comes from rain falling in a northern tempered zone of mountains in Asia minor.

Now Lebanon and Turkey are in the northern tempered zone in winter, but become tropical in summer. The same with Greece, southern Italy and Southern Spain. This may move a bit further north, but Greece and Italy are narrow enough that Tropical weather will provide the water their need. Spain and Turkey may see problems in the interior but not along the coasts for the coastal areas will get rain from water of the nearby sea. The interior areas only get rain when tempered zone fronts go through those countries during winter. You see a similar situation in northern Arabia, while still a desert, it gets more water then North Africa as you get away from the coasts.

Climate change is not expected to change the rough border between the tempered and tropical zones, but the transition from one to the other will be more intense, longer dryer summers and shorter and wetter winters.

The Southern line on the map is roughly how far north the monsoons go. The monsoons are driven by the temperate difference between Antarctica and Africa, India and South Asia. As the temperature gets to high, the monsoon is pulled in with its massive rains. 10,000 years ago the Sahara was Hotter then it is today, and that high temperature pulled the monsoon to cover all of the present day Sahara, but it then cooled down and the monsoons roughly ends at the southern line.

Climate change may increase the extent of the monsoon further north do to increase temperatures in the Sahara. On the other hand the monsoons may end do to increase temperatures in Antarctica. Monsoons are driven by the difference in temperatures between the Sahara and Antarctica, thus with higher temperatures in Antarctica, less of difference in temperatures and thus the end of the monsoons.

Just a comment that the line will not affect Italy or Greece, both have very small lands away from the coasts. Spain and Turkey will see some increase in summer time areas with no water, but it will be marginal. The big fear is the ending of the monsoons that can expand the Sahara southward and turn India into desert. To a degree we are seeing this in Australia, with its massive drought and such droughts are the big fear when it comes to.long term climate change.

Side note: Now, the weather can shift and move in the "Tropics" based on local conditions. The classic example of this is Israel to Saudi Arabia. The sun rises in the West and heats up the Deserts of Arabia and Iraq. Since Hot air molecules are larger in size then cold air molecules, this increase in temperatures leads to an expansion of room taken up by the air molecules, which pushes air in all directions. This push is mostly eastward for it is cooler then Arabia/Iraq for it is still DARK in Israel when the sun starts heating up Arabia (it is hotter to the west of Arabia, for those areas are heated by the sun first). Come the afternoon, the desert of Arabia and Iraq gets dark before Israel, this drop in temperatures leads each air molecule becoming smaller for as air cools, each molecule become smaller taking up less space, and drawing in air from warmer areas. In the case of Arabia from the Mediterranean Sea. The hot air from the Mediterranean cools down over Israel and drop its moisture in the form of rain or dew in the late afternoon or early evening. Please note this is the pattern in the summer months, in winter months the whole area comes under tempered regions weather pattern and you see larger and more extensive rains in the winter. I bring it up as an example of local climate conditions. The pattern in the Summer is NOT east to west as it is further north, but this west then east movement based on the sun rising and setting.

You see another example of this in California. In Summer California gets very little rain for it comes under Tropical weather conditions and in the case of California any moisture is drawn westward by the California Current that flows by California and then turns westward to Japan (the Japanese Current flow from Japan to Washington State and Oregon and brings a ton of water to those two states and Northern California). In winter California comes under Tempered zone weather and you see rain shift southward into California in normal years. Thus you see rain in California, even Southern California in winter. This pattern falls into the US Southwest, but the resulting rainfall is even less then in California. It is only when you get to Texas that you start to see heavy rains, and then mostly from fronts coming from the north (and picking up more moisture as it reaches the Gulf of Mexico, where such fronts pick up more moisture and take it back up north, but this time in the direction of Ohio and Pennsylvania and then New York and New England, but that is a temper zone movement of weather.

I bring this up to show the borders between Tempered zone weather patterns and Tropical zone weather pattern is NOT fixed, but varies based on the time of year. Hurricanes can affect the weather by unpredictable results but most end up in the Tempered zone and turn into fronts. Climate Change will affect these shifts but it is unclear how. I do NOT see the arid lines in North Africa or the Middle east shifting. I do see the arid line south of the Sahara shifting, hopefully northward do to increase temperatures in the Sahara, but most likely southward as Antarctica becomes warmer. I see California and the US Southwest becoming dryer as the higher temperatures delays the movement south of Tempered Zone Weather patterns (and makes the start of when such rains STOP reaching California earlier each year, i.e a much shorter winter period of rains in the Southwest).

[yourpaljoey]

4. Lots of interesting info. Thank you.