The Daily Populous Monday October 25th, 2021 night edition
Authored by washingtonpost.com and submitted by Je_dois_mourir

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Where civilization emerged between the Tigris and Euphrates, climate change is poisoning the land and emptying the villages

No one lives here anymore. The mud-brick buildings are empty, just husks of the human life that became impossible on this land. Wind whips through bone-dry reeds. For miles, thereâs no water to be seen.

Carved from an ancient land once known as Mesopotamia, Iraq is home to the cradle of civilization â the expanse between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the first complex human communities emerged.

But as climate change produces extreme warming and water grows scarcer around the Middle East, the land here is drying up. Across Iraqâs south, there is a sense of an ending.

Years of below-average rainfall have left Iraqi farmers more dependent than ever on the dwindling waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. Fields are turning brown. Salt and pollution are killing the reeds. A lack of access to clean water displaced more than 20,000 Iraqis in 2019, most of them in the countryâs south, according to the International Organization of Migration.

Dozens of farming villages are abandoned, but for an isolated family here and there. The intrusion of saltwater is poisoning lands that have been passed for generations from fathers to sons. The United Nations recently estimated that more than 100 square miles of farmland a year are being lost to desert.

Years of below-average rainfall have left Iraqi farmers more dependent than ever on the dwindling waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. But upstream, Turkey and Iran have dammed their own waterways in the past two years, further weakening the southern flow, so a salty current from the Persian Gulf now pushes northward and into Iraqâs rivers. The salt has reached as far as the northern edge of Basra, some 85 miles inland.

In the historic marshes, meanwhile, men are clinging to what remains of life as they knew it as their buffaloes die and their wives and children scatter across nearby cities, no longer able to stand the summer heat.

Temperatures in Iraq topped a record 125 degrees this summer with aid groups warning that drought was limiting access to food, water and electricity for 12 million people here and in neighboring Syria. With Iraq warming faster than much of the globe, this is a glimpse of the worldâs future.

The central Mesopotamian Marsh in Iraq.

Across marshes often hailed as the original Garden of Eden and on the baking lands beyond, inhabitants now face a choice. âDo we stay or do we go?â sighed Raad al-Ghali, a buffalo herder in the historic marshland of Chibayish while recently sheltering in the shadow beside his tent.

âEveryone is suffering these days. We donât know what to do.â

In Chibayishâs labyrinth of winding waterways, water levels have dropped. Salt and pollution are killing the reeds. To keep their animals alive, residents fill rickety boats with drinking water purchased miles away.

Nearby fields have turned brown. Orchards and roses have disappeared, and the palm trees are dying slowly. In the border town of Siba, water for irrigation is so salty it is poisoning the harvest.

âWe used to grow greenhouses of cucumbers,â recalled a farmer, Abu Ahmed, 52, standing in his desiccated farm. âNow we donât even have a single cucumberâs worth of fresh water. How can we continue here?â

Raad al-Ghali, a buffalo herder in the historic marshland of Chibayish, sits with a cousin. âEveryone is suffering these days," Ghali said. Abu Ahmed stands in his desiccated farm, which he says was destroyed by the heat and the saltiness of the water, near Siba.

LEFT: Raad al-Ghali, a buffalo herder in the historic marshland of Chibayish, sits with a cousin. âEveryone is suffering these days," Ghali said. RIGHT: Abu Ahmed stands in his desiccated farm, which he says was destroyed by the heat and the saltiness of the water, near Siba.

The impact of rising temperatures started slowly, people recall. Year after year, the summers got hotter. Days on the water felt more difficult, and cases of heat stroke increased, according to residents. Buffaloes fell sick. Fish were found dead on the shore.

In previous summers, Ghaliâs animals were tended by his wife and sons, but this year they left for the town of al-Majer, 70 miles to the north. âThey were tired of it here. It was too hot for them. Sometimes we feel like weâre the last generation who will do this. We feel like itâs the end of an era.â

Ghaliâs hair had grayed at his temples, framing wrinkles deepened by the sun. The 40-year-old looked exhausted.

Could he sell the animals and move, too? He shook his head. âNo one would buy them now.â

He looked out across the mud flats where his black buffaloes stood sweating.

âWe never thought things would reach this point,â he said.

Children play in a canal of the Euphrates in Chibayish.

Iraqâs average temperature has risen by 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit since the end of the 19th century, according to Berkeley Earth, double the speed of the Earth as a whole. Climate scientists warn that the extreme temperatures facing places like southern Iraq are a small taste of what will follow elsewhere.

Iraqâs climate woes have exacerbated shortages in everything from food to electricity generation. Fisheries have been depleted. In the countryâs north, wheat production is expected to decline by 70 percent, aid groups say. In provinces without access to rivers, families are spending ever larger portions of their monthly income on drinking water.

The result, increasingly, is migration. According to the International Organization of Migration, more than 20,000 Iraqis were displaced by lack of access to clean water in 2019, most of them in the countryâs south.

But as they flee to towns and cities, theyâre further straining services already hollowed out by widespread corruption and weak job markets where unemployment is high.

Drought is limiting access to food, water and electricity for 12 million people here and in neighboring Syria, aid groups warn. Climate scientists warn that the extreme temperatures facing places like southern Iraq are a small taste of what will follow elsewhere. Iraqâs climate woes have exacerbated shortages in everything from food to electricity generation. Temperatures in Iraq topped a record 125 degrees this summer.

Researchers say migration has sparked tensions with longtime residents, who blame the newcomers for shortages of water and electricity. Summer blackouts are already frequent.

And politicians use migration to deflect from their own failures. âThereâs now a narrative that says people who are emigrated to the cities and living in unofficial neighborhoods are overburdening the local water and power supplies,â said Maha Yassin, a researcher at the Clingendael Instituteâs Planetary Security Initiative.

Animals roam around an abandoned house near Haddam.

In Majer, a run-down town where the summer heat forces residents indoors for much of the day, Ghaliâs brothers described the new life they had found there. The lights flickered, and a weak fan whirred.

âIâm just sitting here. Thereâs no work,â said Tahseen Mohamed, 25, dressed in a dark galabeya with his black hair brushed neatly upward.

In the town of Majer, the summer heat forces residents indoors for much of the day. A woman stands in her house in Majer.

LEFT: In the town of Majer, the summer heat forces residents indoors for much of the day. RIGHT: A woman stands in her house in Majer.

The house was packed with relatives, all dependent on an uncle who earned a salary serving with a militia in the countryâs north. Another brother, they said, was trying to sell the familyâs buffalo milk but with little luck. âThe salt made their milk fattier,â he said.

All agreed that life was more tolerable in the city. The children were happier; the houses had fans. But anxiety still abounded. Ghali, they said, had been taken to the hospital days earlier with heatstroke. An infant niece had died in the hot car when they tried to take her to the doctor. âThe heat makes life so difficult. We know this only gets worse,â said Hussein Mohsen, 24.

The intrusion of saltwater is poisoning lands that have been passed for generations from fathers to sons. To keep their animals alive, residents fill rickety boats with drinking water purchased miles away. Rising heat and salty water have made the land they live on almost useless. As summers get hotter, days on the water are more difficult, and fish have been found dead on the shore.

Mohamed said that his wife had left him once they moved to Majer, because he couldnât afford a house. âLook, I want to make it happen, but where does the money come from?â the young man asked.

In the corner of the room, an old woman nodded sympathetically. âWeâre not ourselves here,â she said.

In the historic marshes, men are clinging to what remains of life as they knew it.

Some villagers canât even afford to flee the tendrils of climate change. In the pockets of Iraqâs rural south that have largely emptied of people, some families fret they have been left behind.

As night fell in the remote border town of Faw on a recent day, Jamila Mohamed, 55, and her brother Hussein were worrying about their animals.

The family was squatting in a government building, because they could not afford to pay rent, and relying on their livestock for food. But the rising heat and salty water have made the land they live on almost useless. Several cows have died. Others are rail thin.

âWe need to sell them because we canât feed them,â Hussein said, patting a black and white calf on the head. âBut what happens after that? We canât afford to leave this place.â

Standing in the twilight as the cows grazed on dirty hay, the air felt still and silent.

Crossing her arms, Jamila exhaled sadly.

âAlmost everyone left us,â she said. âWe only have God now.â

czk_21 on October 24th, 2021 at 17:00 UTC »

quite a senzational headlines, while the area may experience more heat in relation to recent historical values, ppl should not forget that bad land usage is big problem as well, since time civilization was born 5000 years ago ppl there overused irrigation systems and in accordance with it the soil become infertile, civilizations declined there many times because of that

one would imagine that with recent population boom, chemical usage etc, it will only become worse regardless of global warming

TruePolarWanderer on October 24th, 2021 at 14:25 UTC »

There is a decent chance the african rain belt will move abruptly as well.

Looks like it may move North:

https://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3122

here is a map of what the sahara desert looked like in 5500 B.C. The african climate shifted from this to the sahara desert - paleoclimatologists say it was a generational change. The grandfather was herding in what was a desert for the grandson.

Je_dois_mourir on October 24th, 2021 at 13:28 UTC »

Submission Statement:

Things not cited will be common knowledge or in the main article.

Note: I have used the title in the URL/title when embedded elsewhere e.g. on twitter as it is more catchy and fits in the character limit better.

In the west, we still see climate change as something looming in the future, a threat imminent but not yet here, and something for which there is still time to act (or to not act) before we are enveloped within it [1]. For much of the global south, however, it is already here, and to devastating effect.

Mesopotamia was once the cradle of human civilisation, the birthplace of modern society and a land of infinite fertility. Now, there is nothing. Towns lay empty, with a few scattered families too poor to move out left to suffer in poverty and environmental devastation as once fertile lands turn to arid wastelands. Those able to escape migrate to cities in huge numbers, causing social tensions and further pushing the already burdened and corruption-laden infrastructure and services.

The Euphrates and Tigris, once sources of life for early human civilisation, have begun to dry up. This is both because of climate change and because of the actions of Turkey and Iran, who have dammed upstream of the rivers from Iraq and Syria both for energy production and for political leverage (see: Turkey cutting off water supplies to North Syria as part of its conflict with the AANES) [2].

Many, particularly the children and the elderly, have perished in brutal heat over 50 degrees in the summer and under conditions of intense malnutrition. Marshes and flatlands which have provided livelihoods to communities for thousands of years are now being abandoned and rendered bereft of value by climate change. Those that are left desperately try to scrape by, but the incursions of salt water from the Gulf due to the rivers drying up makes livestock unsellable and clean drinking water unaffordable.

It is a calamity, and a stark reminder of what will happen to billions of people if climate change is left unchecked. This is a reflection of what humanity as a whole is soon to face. An existential threat to human civilisation that we are totally unwilling to face the cost of dealing with.

Honestly, I would recommend everyone just read the article. It is haunting and harrowing and I cannot do it justice in this SS.

Sources (Casual Style, not Academic)

1) The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation, by Robert Gifford, published in American psychologist, 66(4), May-June 2011.

2) Human Rights Watch, Turkey/Syria: Weaponizing Water in Global Pandemic?, published 31st March 2020