If climate change means “billions of people will be condemned to
poverty and much of civilisation will collapse,” then it only
seems appropriate we wipe out one of the cradles of
civilization. In the photo, drought plus Turkish dams combine to
“reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle.” Is it the
final curtain for the Fertile Crescent? This summer, as Turkish
dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle,
farmers abandon their desiccated fields across Iraq and Syria,
and efforts to revive the Mesopotamian marshes appear to be
abandoned, climate modellers are warning that the current
drought is likely to become permanent. The Mesopotamian cradle
of civilisation seems to be returning to desert. Last week,
Iraqi ministers called for urgent talks with upstream neighbours
Turkey and Syria, after the combination of a second year of
drought and dams in those countries cut flow on the Euphrates as
it enters Iraq to below 250 cubic metres a second. That is less
than a quarter the flow needed to m