Storm Daniel passed through the Mediterranean in early September,  one of a bewildering number of extreme weather events in recent months. When it hit Libya on 10 September, torrential rainfall led to catastrophic floods in the Town of Derna. At the time of recording as many as 20,000 people are missing, feared dead. It was an example of the terrifying new reality of the climate crisis where entire cities can be wiped out by wildfires or floods, literally in a matter of hours.

But everything has a context, and the context in Derna is a city that is located in one of the most chaotic countries on earth, where government services barely function and the concept of government itself is contested between different rulers in rival areas of the territory. To get a fuller understanding of the situation in Derna and Libya, I was delighted to be able to speak to Jason Pack, Libya expert and author of the book Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder. As we covered in our discussion, what happens in Libya is in some respects a microcosm of a much bigger global crisis, which is also the subject of a new podcast that Jason is bringing out, called Disorder.

You can find Jason’s book here: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/libya-and-the-global-enduring-disorder/

His new podcast is here: https://linktr.ee/disorderpod

And his website is here: https://www.jasonpack.org/

Thanks for listening to Behind the Lines. We are at https://behindthelineswitharthursnell.buzzsprout.com/

I tweet @snellarthur and am now on BlueSky @snellarthur.bsky.social 

And you can read my thoughts on geopolitics at arthursnell.substack.com 

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