In this blog installment and the next one we will examine more closely how environmental factors, including climate, can provide drivers that have the potential to become “the last straw” on top of others factors that may lead to conflict. In worst cases, environmental stresses may turn out to be an even more instrumental factor [...]
In the previous post we have looked at the increased interest in the relationship of climate change to conflict by several recently formed groups that have involved mostly retired senior military officers as well as some high-visibility former and current politicians. At least one of these latter has been known as a climate change skeptic, [...]
The last time we looked at a landmark 2003 paper on the potential effects of abrupt climate change that was commissioned by none other than the Pentagon. Since that Schwartz and Randall paper, two additional studies of particular note have been published as well as the emergence of yet another group involved in this environmental [...]
In Part I of this series we explored the concept of environmental security in terms of its meaning, history and the implications for the environment and for national and global security. We learned that it was not a particularly new concept but could be traced back as early as the 1960’s and, indeed, was the [...]
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States instructs Americans, among other things, to “insure domestic tranquility” and to “provide for the common defense.” In this first of the series I would like to lay out the case that can be made for the necessity of implementing what is termed “environmental security” to meet [...]
It’s the Oil, Stupid !
It’s a sign that ought to hang over the desk of every politician, general and journalist—and architect.
OIL has literally made us what we are today.
Without it, we would not have had the mechanization of agriculture. Before that a farmer could only support the food needs of about 5 others and most of those were his family. Most of us would have been farmers without oil.
