Changing Climate May Push More Countries Past the Brink of War

Changing Climate May Push More Countries Past the Brink of War

The Earth’s fast-changing climate has a range of serious thinkers — from military brass to geographers to diplomats — predicting a spate of armed conflicts driven by the weather.

Each report predicted starkly similar problems: gunfire over land and natural resources as once-bountiful soil turns to desert and coastlines slip below the sea. They also expect violent storms to unsettle weak governments and set up dispirited radicals in revolt.

Security analysts say profound dangers are just years, not decades, away. They already see evidence of societies at odds.

Mounting studies suggest a number of potentially violent scenarios:

• People see their fertile land turn arid and migrate — packing them closer to historical and newfound adversaries.

• Countries already weak or crippled by corruption tip into chaos with even moderate climate change. Crop failures spur violent uprisings and give new energy to ethnic grudges in the face of famine.

•Competition for resources — food, water, oil — grows more tense in times of scarcity.

• Economic collapse in North Africa gives rise to Islamist extremism as blame for climate change focuses on the West. By accident of history and geography, Islamic countries feel the first profound effects of climate change.

• Flooding of coastal areas — particularly in South Asia and the United States — force severe migration and alter regional and even national identities.

• A push to revive the nuclear power industry — as a way to find energy that doesn’t belch more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — masks rogue countries’ efforts to build atomic weapons.


November 10, 2008

http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/881881.html