7.5+ billion people and counting, some of which enjoy the highest standard of living our species has ever known. Those that don't enjoy that standard of living want it, drawing down from a pool of finite resources.<p>Now throw in the ramifications of climate change like drinking water shortages, food and resource scarcity, and migrations from coastal cities - the opportunity for conflict will only rise amongst people and nations.<p>My concern is that this can lead to large scale nuclear war. Yes I'm aware of MAD, but that doesn't protect us from everything. Look at Vasili Arkhipov, Stanislav Petrov, Boris Yeltsin and the Norwegian Rocket Incident. They are just a small number of publicly known incidents where large scale nuclear war was almost triggered due to computer glitches and/or miscommunication. The proliferation of nuclear weapons adds additional challenges in maintaining the peace and we must also deal with existing nuclear actors experiencing wide swings in political leadership - like what has happened with the US presidency.<p>We live in interesting times.
It focuses on the middle east, where the US (& allies) / NATO have been the driving forces behind most of the recent "conflicts" that led to forced migrations (Iraq, Libya, Syria), and then says "climate change had a significant impact"?
Do generals at the Pentagon get too war-happy when it's too warm on average in any given year?
Or is it that plunging Libya and Syria into civil war and leaving Iraq close to it wouldn't have mattered as much if it wasn't for that sea level rise?
My favorite thing is when Republicans - so supportive of the military and focused on practical matters of safety and defense - are the ones continuing to deny climate change. Even though the military is publishing statements and studies saying "no, actually this is a thing we're very worried about and actively taking steps to prepare for".
Click bait. The article is clear... "political conditions play an outsize role. If it’s too authoritarian or too democratic the results are different."
Not explicitly mentioned: The research they reference links droughts in the middle east during 2009-2012 to the migration and refugee situation which has played out in last decade from the Arab Spring.[1]<p>The casual factor that I don't see talked about much: increased local food prices[2] caused by droughts, which in my opinion very much provided the kindling of the "Arab Spring", whose consequences are still very much being played out today.<p>Related aside: When learning about ancient Rome, it stuck with me that the emperors and ruling elite were acutely aware of the importance of providing sufficient "bread and circuses" with the goal of quelling revolution and uprising. When the political situation is not popular in the first place, revolutions are often sparked when food and basic necessities suddenly become difficult to acquire. This has been true since antiquity. [3]<p>When looking at the impact of climate change, I am very concerned about what the impact of a small number of poorly placed natural disasters could do to the world's food supply and prices. Much of the world's food production is concentrated in a small number of breadbaskets, and global commodity markets can be very sensitive to relatively small changes in supply. These breadbaskets are often close together, represent only a small amount of the world's land area and when conditions are good are highly productive.[4]<p>I'm sure the security agencies of the world are aware of this and are deeply concerned about this, but unfortunately I can only see our global situation getting worse before it gets better. At some point we need to realize this as a serious, shared issue that ignores borders.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190123-climate-stress-drove-wave-of-arab-spring-refugees/" rel="nofollow">https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190123-climate-stress-dr...</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-change-the-arab-spring-and-food-prices/" rel="nofollow">https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-change-the-a...</a>
[3] <a href="http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/plebians.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/plebians.html</a>
[4] <a href="https://myweb.rollins.edu/jsiry/agrcultint.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://myweb.rollins.edu/jsiry/agrcultint.jpg</a>
It is a pesky little fact that all the climate models have thus far been wrong and there is still no scientific proof that CO2 drives temperatures.<p>The best research on the table at the moment shows we may be facing a super maunder minimum and possible mini ice age. This research will pan out or not in the next 2-5 years as it is actually falsifiable.<p>No falsifiable claim = no science