Comic Book Traces Syrian Civil War Back to Climate Change

Syria’s long-running civil war is one of the bloodiest in recent memory, and this comic strip points to climate change as a root cause. “Legend has it, the spark of Syria’s civil war came from a few cans of spray paint,” the comic states. But “between 2006 and 2011, over half of the country had suffered under the worst drought on record.” Nearly a million villagers lost their farms and “crowded into overcrowded cities,” where there weren’t enough jobs and water scarcity “became even more dire.” Those were the conditions that sparked protests leading to the civil war. The original drought “was more intense and lasted longer than could be explained by natural variations in weather. This was climate change.”