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Climate Change Is Killing Off a 5000-Year-Old Iraqi Culture

Motherboard: As our species finds itself staring down the barrel at widespread environmental collapse due to climate change, some of us have more to worry about than others. In particular, the Middle East and surrounding regions have been shown to be particularly vulnerable to climate change effects, especially those having to do with water: Within the last seven years the region has lost enough water to fill the Dead Sea and by 2040, 14 of the 33 most water stressed countries on Earth will be in the Middle East....

Climate Change Is Already Costing Us Billions of Dollars Every Year

Motherboard: Climate change has already begun to cost us, and it’s only going to get worse. Hurricanes, intensified in size and frequency by climate change, are taking a massive financial toll already, according to a new paper. The study, published in Nature Geoscience this week, found that an increase in property dollar amounts lost over the past several decades in a case study was due to hurricanes intensified by global warming. Conducted by researchers from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico and...

Less Snow and More Rain Means We’re All Dried Up

Motherboard: Right about now is the most magical time of year in the mountains. Not just for the usual spring reasons of getting to play outside and saying farewell to lingering seasonal affective disorder, but because of water. This is when it all happens: the big melt. Mud season. The amount of water shed from high-country snowpack in the springtime will impact the whole rest of the year. The true amount of that water now choking valley rivers will determine which farmers actually get to farm this year, how...

How Climate Change Warmed Syria Up for War

Motherboard: Most Americans' understanding of the root of the Syrian conflict boils down to something like this: Bashar al-Assad is a sociopathic maniac who'd rather mow down his own people than relinquish dictatorship. While that's undoubtedly part of the equation, there's obviously a lot more at play than that. And some of the blame, scholars argue, can be traced all the way to climate change. As was the case with many of the nations touched by the Arab Spring, a large swath of Syria's citizenry wasn't just...