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Global Warming Could Spur 21st Century Conflicts
OSLO - Droughts, floods and rising seas linked to global warming could spur conflicts in coming decades, experts said on Monday, the eve of a first U.N. Security Council debate on climate change.And the poor in tropical regions of Africa and Asia are likely to suffer most, perhaps creating tensions with rich nations in the temperate north which are likely to escape the worst effects of warming widely blamed on use of fossil fuels.
"Global warming increases the potential for conflict," said Janos Bogardi, head of the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn.
"The most imminent effect is probably desertification and land degradation," he told Reuters. His group has projected that climate change might force hundreds of millions of people from their homes in the long term.
Bogardi said the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, where 200,000 people have died, was "probably the most prominent example" of a conflict partly caused by land degradation.
In the longer term, rising seas caused by melting icecaps and glaciers could swamp large tracts of countries such as Bangladesh, forcing millions to migrate and raising the chances of conflicts over shrinking land.
"Climate change has the potential to be a huge security issue," said Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University in England. Still, he said disputes over oil were now more likely to cause war than climate change.
The U.N. Security Council will discuss climate change on Tuesday for a first time. Britain, which holds the rotating presidency, is spearheading the debate but has not won strong backing from nations including the United States.
U.S. SECURITY
Even so, a report to be released on Monday by a group of 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals will look at how "changing global climate may present serious threats to U.S. national security and to American armed forces at home and abroad."
A study by the world's top climate scientists on April 6 warned that climate change could cause water shortages and hunger for millions of people, mainly in Africa and Asia. In turn, that could bring migrations and spread disease.
"Environmental problems should be included as part of an expanded concept of security," said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
Bogardi said global warming could worsen the divide between rich and poor. The April 6 U.N. report said nations such as Canada, Russia and many in Europe might get some benefits from moderate climate change, such as higher crop yields.
"Countries such as India and China, and Africa are likely to be the losers. This creates a further imbalance of resources and standards of living that could trigger conflict," he said.
And 'climate refugees' may be unable to go home, for instance if deserts expand in sub-Saharan Africa. People living on island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific risk seeing their homes disappear below the waves if seas rise. Political refugees, by contrast, can return if a dictator is toppled.
And environmental damage could also be a source of terrorism. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the United States in 2002 of destroying "nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history."
© Reuters 2007
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Show AllI would go one step further and say that hostilities will rise against nations that are perceived to be big polluters. It is scary to think that even if (big if) the US took the right steps to stop the Global Warming spiral, it wouldn't matter if China and India continue to build more and more coal plants. It's so tragically late to begin to address the problem.
The global conspiracy seems to be run certain countries down so they are just operating and invest heavily in new places of wealth...
With only one thing in mind, the rich getting greedier...
Quite sad really, 2000 years of evolution and the primates are still in charge
As a friend recently pointed out, there are those who say we're smarter than a bunch of bacteria in a Petri dish, which will grow until they either run out of food or create poisons that kill them. Wrong.
Let's take bold action. Oil and auto companies profit from the dumping of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We don't charge them for that. But we do charge people for riding the bus. Let's change that.
http://www.freepublictransit.org
What took them so long to figure this one out? Are we being led by a bunch of morons? Whatever the cause of Global Warming is or isn't doesn't change the fact that the Earth is getting warmer and climates are changing. Of course it's going to be a problem: a problem for people and animals and a problem of security. It's time for the rest of the world to ignore the USA and begin to do something. Perhaps if someone leads then the US will follow. And Canada, I can't believe you're letting the neo-con job seep into your country's government.
hybridoma2001 April 16th, 2007 8:11 pm
"What took them so long to figure this one out? Are we being led by a bunch of morons?"
Yeah, and we have been for decades.
I know, I set myself up for that one. Thanks for the comeback.
Its a cycle folks. Global warming causes the great Atlantic conveyer belt to advance southward caused by more fresh water at the northern boundry of the conveyer from Artic melting, and fresh water sinks slower than salt water. At a certain point the flip happens making latitudes around, say, England to have extreme cold similar to that of Siberia. Recent studies of Artic ice core samples have confirmed the flip can take place in much less than a decade. The resulting ice age can last 10,000 years or longer.
Freezing in the north drought in the south causes human migrations toward the band of inhabitable land in between, resulting in an almost constant state of warfare. Not a pretty picture? Why has the Pentagon, as we find out the consequences of climate change from thousands of reputable scientists without bias from being paid to diseminate false reports by the existing controllers of the fossil fuel industry, issued a war plan recently that deals with just such a scenario?
As far as those who put their faith in the archaic mythological book of Revelations I would say this is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you believe it will happen, can do something to prevent it, yet dont, you are guilty of the sin of not being a proper custodian of the Earth as God has commanded you to do. Then again, if you prefer to live in the anti-social dreamworld of the rapture fantasy, how can you claim any moral high ground when you were by your inaction basically murdering your fellow humans?
Science & religion can collaborate & co-exist as long as science deals with the physical world and religion the spiritual. Everyone in this possible human extinction series of events must work together for our common survival as a species. A little warning though be part of the solution or part of the problem, and humans over the past five million years have proven they will go to ANY extremes when their existance is threatened.
Isnt the sunset pretty tonight wouldnt it be a shame if there were no human eyes around to gaze at such beauty?
By pmsinva2@hotmail.com | Apr 17, 2007 3:11:56 PM |
With the inevitable migration of tens of millions of "blacks and less than whites" northwards in the coming decades, it seems that racists should be screaming for controlling greenhouse gasses if only to save their own selfish selves...
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With that point made, my second point is that Atlantic Monthly has a good article about Darfur, mentioned here, being the first 'true' conflict caused by the present global warming trend.