Wir haben vor kurzem den kältesten September (2018) der letzten 10 Jahre erlebt, wie der Satellitendatenexperte Roy Spencer auf Basis der UAH-Messungen mitteilte. In der deutschsprachigen Presse war davon natürlich nichts zu lesen.
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Sie kennen das auch: Gewisse Zeitgenossen schaffen es regelmäßig, das Thema einer Unterhaltung auf ihr Steckenpferd umzuleiten. Geht es etwa gerade um die Ergebnisse des letzten Tennisturniers, so leitet der besessene Briefmarkensammler schnell auf die neue Tennis-Edition der kubanischen Postbehörde um. Und wenn es um Rezepte zum Gulasch geht, gibt „unser Freund“ einen beiläufigen Hinweis auf eine Sondermarke zum Welthungertag. Wir lieben diese Leute. Alles dreht sich immer nur um das eine. Ähnlich geht es den Klimabesessenen. Hinter jedem Übel steckt der Klimawandel. Und wenn es einmal kein Übel gibt, wird dies schleunigst als Vorbote eines drohenden Übels gedeutet. Im Prinzip muss man nur die Nachrichten schauen. Fast jede Nachricht hat einen Bezug zum Klimawandel. Ob Krimkrise, Koalitionskrise oder Kartoffelkrise: CO2 ist stets der Bösewicht.
Das hatte man auch für den Bürgerkrieg in Ägypten bzw. den Arabischen Frühling versucht. Wie schön wäre es, wenn man den Klimawandel da irgendwie in den Streit einbinden könnte. Die Geographin und Expertin für den Mittleren Osten, Jessica Barnes, hatte jetzt genug vom Klimagejammer und warnte vor einer fatalen Fehldeutung der Ereignisse. Auszug ihres Artikels auf Reliefweb vom 1. Oktober 2018:
Overstating Climate Change in Egypt’s Uprising
The possible link between climate change and political upheaval in the Middle East has attracted increasing media attention and is generating a new wave of academic research seeking to demonstrate the link. An influential study that put forward this thesis was the 2013 report The Arab Spring and Climate Change, published by the Center for American Progress in Washington DC. Featuring images of angry protestors, parched fields, and people carrying water, the report asserted that while climate change did not cause the Arab uprisings, it acted as a “threat multiplier,” which exacerbated “environmental, social, economic, and political drivers of unrest.” In other words, human-induced changes in climatic conditions, through their impact on water supplies and agricultural production, can interact with and even accelerate social and political causes of dissent and rebellion.
The case of the Syrian civil war features prominently among many proponents of the view that climate change is acting as a “threat multiplier” in regional unrest. A number of scholars have argued that the severe drought in northeastern Syria in 2007 through 2010, linked in part to climate change but also to natural variability, resulted in crop failures and mass rural-to-urban migration, which contributed to political instability and ultimately helped spark the civil war. In terms that mirror the “threat multiplier” discourse, the contention is that climate change acted as a catalyst, compounding deteriorating socioeconomic conditions and people’s dissatisfaction with the authoritarian state. Politicians such as President Barack Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders, as well as attention-grabbing newspaper headlines, have reinforced and helped popularize the belief that climate change was consequential in the Syrian rebellion.
The alleged linkage between climate change and civil war in Syria, however, has been increasingly questioned by a number of scholars. Critics claim that there is no clear and compelling evidence to back up each step in the argument: that climate change was a major factor in the Syrian drought; that the drought actually caused large scale rural-to-urban migration; or that this migration contributed to civil war. Others have highlighted the depoliticizing effect of a narrow focus on the drought itself as the source of unrest rather than on the far more numerous political and economic grievances against the Assad regime articulated by its opponents. Moreover, this narrow focus draws attention away from the mismanagement of natural resources by the Assad regime in agricultural regions, which may have been more of a trigger of unrest than the drought itself. Nevertheless, the Syria case continues to be cited as a supposedly powerful example of the link between climate and conflict in the region.
Egypt is another case where climate change is alleged to have played an important and overlooked role in producing the political unrest of 2011. It is also another case where caution and more careful examination are needed regarding this linkage.
Weiterlesen auf Reliefweb.
