4 ms·

Arguably Iran is seeing turmoil, at least partially, due to drought. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/17/nx-s1-5500318/iranian-officials-warn-tehran-could-run-out-o

Arguably Iran is seeing turmoil, at least partially, due to drought. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/17/nx-s1-5500318/iranian-officials-warn-tehran-could-run-out-of-water-in-weeks-amidst-massive-drought https://www.npr.org/2025/08/17/nx-s1-5500318/iranian-officia...

chii 9mo ago
while the drought was the last straw, i think the mismanagement of their water resources by the regime (for embezzlement of public funds, direct or indirect, into insider pockets etc) is the true root cause. There's "enough" water to last thru the current drought, if it was better utilized in the past.
- lysace 9mo ago
  Supporting this: https://e360.yale.edu/features/iran-water-drought-dams-qanats https://e360.yale.edu/features/iran-water-drought-dams-qanat... “The government blames the current crisis on changing climate [but] the dramatic water security issues of Iran are rooted in decades of disintegrated planning and managerial myopia,” says Keveh Madani, a former deputy head of the country’s environment department and now director of the United Nations University’s Institute of Water, Environment and Health.
  - Y-bar 9mo ago
    It takes a certain kind of self-delusion to blame climate change and at the same time ignore that your own actions has been one of the major drivers, both in the past and today, of that very same climate change.
    - chii 9mo ago
      While you cannot put the blame on climate change onto iran alone (all of humanity has a part in it), the regime wants to deflect the blame conveniently onto climate change so as to absolve themselves of being responsible for their current water crisis. So it's not really delusion, but irresponsibility and selfishness.
      - Y-bar 9mo ago
        I’m only putting 2-3% of the global climate change as directly attributable to Iran. And their explicit attempts at preventing progress in stopping it.
rob74 9mo ago
That, plus decades of mismanagement and corruption...
magicalhippo 9mo ago
I recall reading about a paper in SciAm or American Scientist a couple of decades ago, where they had trained a ML model to predict regional conflicts or civil wars. The main input was scarcity of food, mainly through price IIRC. They trained it on historical data up to the 90s or so, and had it predict the "future" up to the time of the article. And as I recall it did very well. They even included some actual near-future predictions as well which also turned out pretty accurately as I recall. Which I suppose isn't a huge surprise after all. People don't like to starve.
- schainks 9mo ago
  Link?
  - zweifuss 9mo ago
    https://homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Environmental-Change-and-Violent-Conflict-1.pdf https://homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Environmen...
  - magicalhippo 9mo ago
    My memory isn't good enough to recall the name of the paper, however doing some searching I see the field has not stood still. Here[1] is an example of a more recent paper where they've included more variables. A quote from the conclusions: The closest natural resource–society interaction to predict conflict risk according to our models was food production within its economic and demographic context, e.g., with GDP per capita, unemployment, infant mortality and youth bulge. [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6574 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6574 Revisiting the Contested Role of Natural Resources in Violent Conflict Risk through Machine Learning (Open Access)
baxtr 9mo ago
But the drought was not caused by climate change, but by mismanagement ie complete neglect of the problem.
- Y-bar 9mo ago
  Arguably the climate change we see today (and will see in the future) is also largely caused by mismanagement and complete neglect of the problem.
- pmezard 9mo ago
  Is not climate change mismanagement or complete neglect of the problem?
  - schainks 9mo ago
    Iran specifically had infrastructure in place to help manage the water for Tehran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat). The Ayatollahs not only _destroyed_ that infrastructure and the system of humans needed to maintain it, but they also encouraged pumping of water from local aquifers, among other obviously stupid water management techniques: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/khomeini-promised-free-water-iran-running-out-it https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/khomeini... So, you are right, but in Iran's case, the current regime pretty much did the opposite of anything you should have done, while also chopping of their hands to do anything more.
  - baxtr 9mo ago
    Absolutely. But the problems are on different time scales and spheres of influence. Iran can’t do anything on their own against climate change. But they can decide to fund water projects instead of bombs. It’s a bit like saying: I went to the beach for a day and got sunburned. It’s climate change! Yes the sun got more intense because of climate change (maybe) but why didn’t you buy an umbrella or sun screen?
    - paganel 9mo ago
      > But they can decide to fund water projects instead of bombs. And become again a client state of the West, you forgot that part.

chii 9mo ago

while the drought was the last straw, i think the mismanagement of their water resources by the regime (for embezzlement of public funds, direct or indirect, into insider pockets etc) is the true root cause. There's "enough" water to last thru the current drought, if it was better utilized in the past.

lysace 9mo ago
Supporting this: https://e360.yale.edu/features/iran-water-drought-dams-qanats https://e360.yale.edu/features/iran-water-drought-dams-qanat... “The government blames the current crisis on changing climate [but] the dramatic water security issues of Iran are rooted in decades of disintegrated planning and managerial myopia,” says Keveh Madani, a former deputy head of the country’s environment department and now director of the United Nations University’s Institute of Water, Environment and Health.
- Y-bar 9mo ago
  It takes a certain kind of self-delusion to blame climate change and at the same time ignore that your own actions has been one of the major drivers, both in the past and today, of that very same climate change.
  - chii 9mo ago
    While you cannot put the blame on climate change onto iran alone (all of humanity has a part in it), the regime wants to deflect the blame conveniently onto climate change so as to absolve themselves of being responsible for their current water crisis. So it's not really delusion, but irresponsibility and selfishness.
    - Y-bar 9mo ago
      I’m only putting 2-3% of the global climate change as directly attributable to Iran. And their explicit attempts at preventing progress in stopping it.

rob74 9mo ago

That, plus decades of mismanagement and corruption...

magicalhippo 9mo ago

I recall reading about a paper in SciAm or American Scientist a couple of decades ago, where they had trained a ML model to predict regional conflicts or civil wars. The main input was scarcity of food, mainly through price IIRC. They trained it on historical data up to the 90s or so, and had it predict the "future" up to the time of the article. And as I recall it did very well. They even included some actual near-future predictions as well which also turned out pretty accurately as I recall. Which I suppose isn't a huge surprise after all. People don't like to starve.

schainks 9mo ago
Link?
- zweifuss 9mo ago
  https://homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Environmental-Change-and-Violent-Conflict-1.pdf https://homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Environmen...
- magicalhippo 9mo ago
  My memory isn't good enough to recall the name of the paper, however doing some searching I see the field has not stood still. Here[1] is an example of a more recent paper where they've included more variables. A quote from the conclusions: The closest natural resource–society interaction to predict conflict risk according to our models was food production within its economic and demographic context, e.g., with GDP per capita, unemployment, infant mortality and youth bulge. [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6574 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6574 Revisiting the Contested Role of Natural Resources in Violent Conflict Risk through Machine Learning (Open Access)

baxtr 9mo ago

But the drought was not caused by climate change, but by mismanagement ie complete neglect of the problem.

Y-bar 9mo ago
Arguably the climate change we see today (and will see in the future) is also largely caused by mismanagement and complete neglect of the problem.
pmezard 9mo ago
Is not climate change mismanagement or complete neglect of the problem?
- schainks 9mo ago
  Iran specifically had infrastructure in place to help manage the water for Tehran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat). The Ayatollahs not only _destroyed_ that infrastructure and the system of humans needed to maintain it, but they also encouraged pumping of water from local aquifers, among other obviously stupid water management techniques: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/khomeini-promised-free-water-iran-running-out-it https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/khomeini... So, you are right, but in Iran's case, the current regime pretty much did the opposite of anything you should have done, while also chopping of their hands to do anything more.
- baxtr 9mo ago
  Absolutely. But the problems are on different time scales and spheres of influence. Iran can’t do anything on their own against climate change. But they can decide to fund water projects instead of bombs. It’s a bit like saying: I went to the beach for a day and got sunburned. It’s climate change! Yes the sun got more intense because of climate change (maybe) but why didn’t you buy an umbrella or sun screen?
  - paganel 9mo ago
    > But they can decide to fund water projects instead of bombs. And become again a client state of the West, you forgot that part.