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Climate change may increase global conflict Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com August 25, 2008
While scientists work to understand how climate change is affecting the world's ecosystems, others are attempting to predict how societies may respond. Jurgen Scheffran, a scientist with the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at the University of Illinois, believes a warmer world will lead to an increase in armed conflicts. He concludes that societies stressed by increased competition for natural resources are more likely to engage in warfare. The most significant cause for conflict would be threats to food and water security. "Most critical for human survival are water and food, which are sensitive to changing climatic conditions," Scheffran said. In his survey, Scheffran noted that the number of areas susceptible to drought will rise, and freshwater sources from glaciers in places such as the Himalayas and the Andes are likely to decrease. In what he calls a "cascading effect" resource-stressed societies will be less likely to withstand other climate change fallouts, such as intensifying natural disasters, economic depression, and a rise in environmental migrants. To illuminate this point, Scheffran references both historical and contemporary examples.
Conflicts related to climate change have also occurred in the not-too-distant past. "The so-called 'Little Ice Age' in the northern hemisphere a few hundred years ago was caused by an average drop in temperature of less than a degree Celsius," he says. "The consequences were quite severe in parts of Europe, associated with loss of harvest and population decline. Riots and military conflicts became more likely, as a recent empirical study has suggested." This pattern can be seen throughout our past. "History has shown how dependent our culture is on a narrow window of climatic conditions for average temperature and precipitation," Scheffran says. "The great human civilizations began to flourish after the last ice age, and some disappeared due to droughts and other adverse shifts in the climate." For example, regions of the Sahara used to be far wetter and greener than they are today, some supporting large populations of hunters and fishermen before being swallowed by the desert. In Iraq great ancient metropolises, such as Ur, now sit on dry parched earth, abandoned 2,500 years ago due to droughts.
Scheffran sees signs of optimism in the attention placed on climate change (compared even to a few years ago), in grassroots movements around the world, and in both U.S. residential candidates recognizing climate change as a serious economic, social, and environmental threat. "Although climate change bears a significant conflict potential, it can also transform the international system toward more cooperation if it is seen as a common threat that requires joint action," Scheffran says, citing the conference at Bali in 2007 as an example of the beginnings of international cooperation. Perhaps instead of inciting conflicts, climate change could actually help bring the world together.
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