After two weeks of protests across Iran over scarce water supplies, the government violently cracked down on demonstrators with a 4am raid last Friday, beating and firing birdshot at the Isfahan farmers gathered in a dry river bed. “Before we had a chance to move, suddenly our tents were set on fire and they started throwing tear gas at us and shooting in the air,” 47-year-old farmer and protestor Hassan Tavakoli told the New York Times in an interview. Nearly the entire country, 97% according to the Iran Meteorological Organization, is enduring some degree of drought. Climate change, caused primarily by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, is worsening drought and extreme heat and heatwaves, both of which have hit the country this year leading to power outages, water shortages, and civil unrest persisting since at least July. (New York Times $)