The Connection between Climate Change and National Security

By Peter Jones

 

A recent blog commented on an interview with Chris Alexander, a Conservative Member of Parliament  for Ajax-Pickering.  In the interview Chris mentioned coming back from his diplomatic posting in Afghanistan and seeing David Suzuki on the television talking about ‘the end of the world’. From Chris’ perspective, wars in that part of the world are a much greater threat to our survival.

A new book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, by Christian Parenti, attributes many local armed conflicts to the consequences of Climate Change.

Climate change has had a great impact on countries near the equator.  The South Sahel desert, which includes Mali, has experienced several years of severe drought attributable to climate change. As a cause of the drought, climate change has led to armed conflict between Northern rebels and the Mali government since January 2012.

To the East of the Sahel, the war between Arab and African tribal groups in Darfur has been described as genocide. The always-present competition between scarce primary resources in Darfur-arable land and water-has been exacerbated by advancing desertification throughout the Sahel region.  Again climate change is a contributing cause.

The immediate crisis in Somalia is caused by a combination of famine and civil war. But drought caused the famine, and science points to climate change as the cause of the drought.

To explain his comment, Alexander referred to his experience in Afghanistan. In a recent interview Parenti also made specific reference to the problems in that country:

“A driving factor in the violence in Afghanistan is that the worst drought in living memory has coincided with the whole NATO occupation there. One reason that farmers grow opium is because it uses one-fifth to one-sixth the water that wheat uses. It’s the crop that’s economically feasible. And the Taliban defend the farmers’ right to grow opium. So I can’t see how this U.S.-led occupation eventually translates into a stable country there.”

Read more about Parenti’s views at Global warming could lead to global warring

Alexander is correct that wars are a necessary concern of the Western democracies.  Yet that concern requires  understanding that climate change is a threat to the National Security of many countries.

See the most recent Guardian article entitled:

US intelligence community warns of rising climate security threat

1 thought on “The Connection between Climate Change and National Security”

  1. I have long considered climate change to be the largest contributing factor to the situation of failed states that we see in Africa and elsewhere. Two books on the subject are: Planet Earth: the latest Weapon of War, by Rosalie Bertell, and Global Warring: How Environment, Economics and Political Crises will redraw the World Map, by Cleo Pascal. Emissions needed to be cut drastically, yesterday. The urgency of this situation cannot be exaggerated.

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