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(Naturally, distilling a complicated subject down to such a brief segment required leaving lots of the ifs, buts, and other caveats on the cutting room floor. If keen to learn much, much more, I've got a book for you....)

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coverage might suggest. It's very much part of the mix though. If the country is ever again to be at peace, then restoring the jobs and degree of food security that depend on a healthier ag sector will be pivotal.

Above all, though, there's a immediate human & physical security imperative to address enviro damage. Climate stresses and regime responses to them were certainly *one* contributor to the initial uprising. As I found in my many interviews in country since 2014, the narrative is messier than 5/

Throughout the war, intensifying climate stresses have gone unaddressed, with drought, sandstorms, and heatwaves striking a cruelly unprepared population. Syria has received almost no climate finance. No matter what happens next politically, that shortfall must be addressed 4/

Much of the most insidious damage, though, has emerged from neglect & ad hoc economic practices adopted by desperate locals and admins during wartime. Think prolific deforestation, even more intense groundwater depletion, and the cons of 'artisanal' oil refining, as in this corner of NE Syria 3/

Almost every military actor has used water or other resources as weapons of war. This was extra true of the regime & ISIS, but victorious rebels got in on the act too–––as in the case of this dried out riverbed. A colleague & I stumbled on it soon after the SNA had blocked Khabur w an earth dam 2/