Jeff Dunetz aka The ‘YidWithLid’ writes:
Latest Climate Idiocy: Global Warming Created ISIS
In recent weeks the Obama administration has blamed President Bush and/or the intelligence community for the creation of ISIS, others have blamed President Obama and his reluctance to get involved in another Middle East conflict, but apparently both positions are wrong. According to a recent article in the Huffington Post, the reason why ISIS was able to form and grow so fast was global warming (note: do not check your calendar it’s September not April fools day they really believe this).
The authors of the piece; Charles B. Strozier Professor of History, The City University of New York; and Kelly A. Berkell Attorney and research associate, Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice believe that ISIS formed because of a severe drought in Syria from 2006-2010 and that drought happened because of—you guessed it—Climate Change.
As the Obama administration undertakes a highly public, multilateral campaign to degrade and destroy the militant jihadists known as ISIS, ISIL and the Islamic State, many in the West remain unaware that climate played a significant role in the rise of Syria’s extremists. A historic drought afflicted the country from 2006 through 2010, setting off a dire humanitarian crisis for millions of Syrians. Yet the four-year drought evoked little response from Bashar al-Assad’s government. Rage at the regime’s callousness boiled over in 2011, helping to fuel the popular uprising. In the ensuing chaos, ISIS stole onto the scene, proclaimed a caliphate in late June and accelerated its rampage of atrocities including the recent beheadings of three Western civilians.
While ISIS threatens brutal violence against all who dissent from its harsh ideology, climate change menaces communities (less maliciously) with increasingly extreme weather.
The drought that preceded the current conflict in Syria fits into a pattern of increased dryness in the Mediterranean and Middle East, for which scientists hold climate change partly responsible. Affecting 60 percent of Syria’s land, drought ravaged the country’s northeastern breadbasket region; devastated the livelihoods of 800,000 farmers and herders; and knocked two to three million people into extreme poverty. Many became climate refugees, abandoning their homes and migrating to already overcrowded cities. They forged temporary settlements on the outskirts of areas like Aleppo, Damascus, Hama and Homs. Some of the displaced settled in Daraa, where protests in early 2011 fanned out and eventually ignited a full-fledged war.
Although I am not a climate scientist (actually neither are the authors) it is easy to strike down their theory, both from a political and a scientific point of view:
- ISIS did not form in Syria it formed in Iraq. In fact one of the reasons each party has been able to blame the other for the rise of the terrorist group is that ISIS used to be al Qaeda in Iraq. They were thrown out of the Bin Laden group because the ISIS leaders did not play nice with the al Qaeda leaders.
- Perhaps the single most important factor in ISIS’ recent resurgence is the conflict between Iraqi Shias and Iraqi Sunnis. ISIS fighters themselves are Sunnis, and the tension between the two groups is a powerful recruiting tool for ISIS. The Shia government of Iraq refused to share power with the Sunnis (who held power under Saddam Hussein). The Shia/Sunni fight began as a fight over who got to take power after the Prophet Muhammad’s death and has been going on for almost 1400 years–way before ISIS.
- Most observers believe ISIS was able to grow because American troops pulled out of Iraq too early and didn’t help out in Syria until it was too late. Unless the drought happened in Washington DC, it couldn’t have had any influence on the President’s decision.
- Droughts? science that states there has been no increase in droughts world-wide. In other words if you believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket due to global warming, that climate change is not increasing the number of droughts in in the world.
“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” Professor Roger Pielke Jr. said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
In May of 2014 Professor Pielke published a graph that shows the intensity of the planet’s droughts from 1982 to 2012. The graph shows that neither droughts nor their intensity have seen a growth trend during that 30-year period.
- It’s not getting warmer. Its incredible that almost every day the global warming hoaxers come up with another example of how the earth is being destroyed due to their hypothesis like the one being explored here. The truth is as of Sept. 1 the Earth hasn’t warmed in the last 17 years and 11 months (new numbers, through October 1will be out in a few days). Another way to look at it is the warming stopped approximately ten years before the drought in Syria…making it difficult for there to be a connection.
It is interesting that the authors contend “ISIS threatens brutal violence against all who dissent from its harsh ideology” which is true, ISIS not only threaten violence but they follow through with their threats. Also true is that the climate change proponents threaten violence. Thankfully they do not follow through with it, but they do attack people who question their unproven hypothesis as science haters and deniers of truth. Perhaps if they examined the facts instead of desperately trying to prove their hypothesis true climate change enthusiasts would realize the holes in their arguments.
Climate change helping to create ISIS is now #49 on the “official list,” of stupid things global warming enthusiasts have blamed on their failed theory:
Read his list of 49 “stupid things” here:
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2014/09/latest-climate-idiocy-global-warming.html
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See that shark over there? Oops, they have just jumped over it!
Up until now I have been watching this whole predicting the future through weather portents meme with amusement, kind of like watching Mayan, Aztec or Egyptian Priests controlling the population through weather and astronomical predictions and human sacrifices, in real time.
Now though, I am starting to get a little perturbed. They are falsely crying fire in a crowded theatre and it is time to start punishing them for their words and actions.
False alarm is not protected speech.
I strongly believe that the climate change “pushers” are NOT stupid but are “sticking to” an agenda.
Is it a ruse, a diversion or something more subversive? I suspect all of the above.
Maybe it is time to stop trying to disprove them and dig into the real agenda. Of course there is no global warming/climate change – but some thing BIG is going on—-IMO.
The climate has been unstable and changing ever since the days of Noah / Gilgamesh / the Younger Dryas / the Hadean Age (depending on your preferred version of history).
What is important to the enviros is whether you can blame it on everybody who has more more money than political clout – and justify taxing them back into the Stone Age thereby.
These people need to show an increased frequency of drought over at least 30 years of climate for me to pay any attention. Even then they have to link it to man’s greenhouse gases.
That is one of the best AGW cartoons I’ve seen. Simple. I would, however, add a blade to it that reads “Swiss Army”, although they are one of the lesser-known victims of this scourge.
Regardless, that is the cartoon I want on my t-shirt. Where can I get one?
There’s an “official” list? Years ago, I saw a list of things caused by global warming that numbered in the hundreds. Has the list been getting smaller, or was the list I saw an “unofficial” list?
Louis,
Is this what you were looking for?
Can we please stop playing into the mythology by investing the two words ‘climate change’ with mystical meaning greater than the sum of their parts? I doubt there are many on here who would dispute that climate changes, and what is a “drought” or “pattern of increased dryness” but climate change? It’s a truism. Hence we can distill the above-quoted sentence “The drought that preceded the current conflict in Syria fits into a pattern of increased dryness in the Mediterranean and Middle East, for which scientists hold climate change partly responsible” to read “a change in the climate has occurred, for which scientists hold climate change partly responsible” and reveal the grasping logic employed.
Changing weather patterns is not “climate change”. The “climate zones” remain pretty stable.
Silly me, here I though ISIS was caused by head hacking stone aged jihadi’s. Wait a minute….isn’t there a drought going on in California right now? AHHHH!! We can only logically expect Barbara Boxer/Nancy Pelosi to establish a liberal new world order and govern a new caliphate by executing anyone that stands in their way!! It’s CLIMATE CHANGE people!! AHHHHH!
It depends on what the definition of Isis.
Wonderful post Robert….may I use it?
;-))))))
“Climate refugees”.
I always thought a “refugee” was someone who went somewhere to escape something.
Where does one go to escape “climate”?
We used to call them “snowbirds”!
We’re getting into George Carlin territory.
I think those would be the wealthy few who escape the cold winters & spend half the year in a nice warm place, lucky them!! By the why I do so love the __ er __ friendly banter in all these comments, very amusing.
What changed me from being mildly sceptical to much more sceptical of the claims of global warning was when the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami 10 years ago, given no repudiation of the claim in the media or so-called experts. Even if the oceans were to instantly begin to boil, any idea how long it would take for that heat signature to reach the depth of that earthquake! I guess the idea was “don’t waste a good crisis!”
Unfortunately, the scientific process is being prostituted because of the alliance of politcs, money and crisis peddeling and this is not just in climate science.
So sad.
Gary
But but but….
COLD leads to drought in the Levant, Egypt, Syria, Babylon, etc… There are a load of archeological references. Just one such:
http://www.sott.net/article/267972-Drought-triggered-collapse-of-civilization-in-Levant-more-than-3000-years-ago
The specimens, taken from evidence dating back over the past 9,000 years in some cases, revealed a significant decline in Mediterranean trees such as oaks, pines and carobs during the Late Bronze Age. This was mirrored in a similar decline in the local cultivation of olive trees. The researchers attribute these patterns to repeated periods of drought, which were probably made worse by cold weather, triggering famine and marauding throughout the region.
Same thing at the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom…
So if there’s drought in the Levant, look for cold as the cause (maybe that snow we had in the last couple of years…. )
I’m beginning to think that global warming causes the creation of lists as to things it causes…
I can certainly discern a trend anyway.
#49??? Come now. Check out the “Warm List.” It would be #884.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
Well if the Republicans win the Senate this election cycle can add one more thing to the list, since the Democrats will be blaming Climate Change.
Just out of curiosity, haven’t we blasted way past stupid at this point, and ventured into some kind of clinical mental infirmity?
The fact is that the ME and most of the African continent is run by a ;thugocracy’..
Qatar has, reputedly, about 259,000 locals and 1.8 million immigrant slaves/workers.
Saudi Arabia has a so called ‘royal’ family that, reputedly, produced Osama Bin Laden!
WTF?
We are sending good men and women into areas, like Afg or Iraq, when the crime is being financed from real centres of control and finance.
The ordinary folk in those places are ignorant however and cannot survive on their barren wastelands.
Perhaps, when the oil/gas is gone,they will either emulate Israel or, collectively, we will send them to another planet, a la Frank Herbert’s “Dune” saga.
Hang on a minute,a post on here not long ago said it was ’52’,
I was looking forward to seeing the “Jokers Of The Pack”.
There were general protests that took place in Iran sometime following the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq (and, amazingly, following a request for a similar action against Iran by none other than a descendant of the Ayatollah Khomeini himself), and protests in Beirut, Lebanon following the assassination of Rafik Hariri, but also encouraged by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Neither of these protests, however, went on to the next stage. How then, did the general discontent in Libya and Syria boil into armed insurrections when the same did not happen in Teheran and Beirut? Could it be because the former was supported and, most importantly, armed whereas the latter were not? So who got the ball rolling? Who armed them? What was the plan behind the Arab Spring all along? In fact, who popularized that most appealing name? – Arab Spring. I think those are more pertinent questions for an historian to ask rather than to make blather on climate change. But, perhaps they’re not more profitable questions.
Tom J,
Exactly. These academics are engaging in transparent cynical rent seeking.
I agree. Climate change is a smoke screen. Remember the old tactic of :”divide and conquer”?
skeptic — a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual (dictionary.com)
= = = = = = = = = =
U.S. Says Insurgent Leader It Couldn’t Find Never Was
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: July 19, 2007
For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.
As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, Mr. Baghdadi issued incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by an Iraqi Interior Ministry official in May that Mr. Baghdadi had been killed, he appeared to have persevered unscathed.
On Wednesday, the chief United States military spokesman here, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, provided a new explanation for Mr. Baghdadi’s ability to escape attack: he never existed.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E7DF1431F93AA25754C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&emc=eta1
= = = = = =
3 years later…
= = = = = =
Top two al-Qaeda leaders killed in Iraq
The Age, 20 Apr 2010
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi [who never existed] and Abu Ayub al-Masri were killed early on Sunday in a series of operations 10km southwest of Tikrit…
http://www.theage.com.au/world/top-two-alqaeda-leaders-killed-in-iraq-20100420-sptu.html
= = = = = =
And Oceania has alway been at war with al Qaeda, has it not?
(with: “accompanied by” – dictionary.com)
Obama admitted to having underestimated the threat posed by ISIS because he lacked intelligence…….savor that for a while.
+10
According to the news today global warming is messing up gravity! Apparently we may all fly off into space.
This latest piece of ridiculousness is due to an excessively excitable research press release about gravitational measurements of changes in the antarctic ice shee, and a bunch of supposed science reporters who it seems wouldn’t know science if it came up and bit them on the butt.
‘Climate change created ISIS’ – yes this is perfectly logical. Climate Change as everyone knows can cause you to be beheaded. But all we need to do to get rid of ISIS and keep ourselves safe from beheading is to reduce our carbon footprints, pay our carbon taxes and hug a treeorist.
I would clarify the creative process a bit.
Climate change (grant chasing) created (this historical fiction) about what formed ISIS.
“Rent seeking” is a great term to describe how the professional academic industry stretches and morphs their work to make it more likely they receive money by way of foundation or government grants.
A definition of rent seeking:
“The practice of an individual, company, or government attempting to make a profit without making a product, producing wealth, or otherwise contributing to society. For example, a company may seek subsidies from the government, which would count as income for that company. Likewise, a government may seek rent by seizing control of natural resources and charging citizens for use. Some rent seeking is legal, while others, such as some forms of blackmail, are not. Rent-seeking behavior is most common when the rent seeker is also a monopoly or has sufficient economic or political power to act as one. The concept was originated by Adam Smith.
Farlex Financial Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All Rights Reserved”
What contributes less to society than allegedly good academics like the authors of the paper discussed in this thread to have ‘modified’ the region’s history and the facts of the case to arrive at the conclusion that CO2 is responsible for the rise of the current bogeyman, ISIS?