The fertile crescent is one of the most geoengineered regions on this planet, with a long history of ecological collapses and recoveries going back five thousand years. The most major one is thought to have brought about the fall of Babylon and resulted in mass desertification. The construction of many dams along the Tigris&#x2F;Euphrates&#x2F;Nile and rapid salinifcation of the soil over the last hundred years also had a very drastic impact on agriculture. Then there&#x27;s also the effects caused by the collapse and splintering of the Ottoman empire, including less investment and cooperation in repairing aging infrastructure and ethnoreligious conflicts that have been very destructive.<p>I have little doubt that climate change has contributed to these changes over the thousands of years, but it&#x27;s just one of many confounding factors that have led to the fertile crescent death spiral, one that I&#x27;d wager is relatively irrelevant (at least for now) when compared to everything else we humans have done in that region.