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Lukas Rüttinger, A New Climate for Peace
Insurgency, Terrorism, and Organized Crime in a Warming Climate
›May 2, 2017 // By Wilson Center StaffTerrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Boko Haram have been dominating the headlines since 2013. Both groups have gained international notoriety for their ruthless brutality and their rise is posing new challenges for national, regional, and international security. Such non-state armed groups (NSAG) are not a new phenomenon. Today, however, we can observe an increasingly complex landscape of violent actors with a range of hybrid organizational structures and different agendas that set them apart from “traditional” non-state actors and result in new patterns of violence.
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Climate-Induced Migration in the Philippines, and Mercy Corps’ Resilience Work in Ethiopia
›Recent rises in temperature and typhoon frequency and intensity have resulted in more internal migration in the Philippines, according to an article by Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra et al. in Population and Environment. The authors conclude that temperature change and natural disasters, such as typhoons, can have a significant effect on short-distance, sub-national migration because they reduce rice yields, which is used as a proxy for agricultural productivity.
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Backdraft #7: Janani Vivekananda on What Renewable Energy Projects Can Learn From Oil, and Future-Proofing Humanitarian Responses
›As more and more development and humanitarian programs contend with climate-related problems, there are important lessons learned from past experience that should not be forgotten, says Janani Vivekananda, formerly of International Alert and now with adelphi, in this week’s episode of “Backdraft.”
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Jessica F. Green & Thomas N. Hale, Duck of Minerva
Why IR Needs the Environment and the Environment Needs IR
›April 13, 2017 // By Wilson Center StaffThe state of the global environment is terrible – and deteriorating. The globalization of industrial production and the consumptive habits of 7 billion people have created the Anthropocene, a geologic age in which the actions of humans are the primary determinant of the Earth’s natural systems. This shift creates a profound new form of environmental interdependence, of which climate change is only the most salient example.
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Water and the Rise of Insurgencies in the “Arc of Instability”
›Water scarcity has contributed to an “arc of instability” characterized by conflict and displacement that stretches from West Africa to the Middle East, said a panel of experts at the Wilson Center on March 1. Two authors from an upcoming compilation of case studies on water security and violent conflict by World Wildlife Fund gave overviews of challenges in Nigeria and Iran and recommendations for U.S. engagement.
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A Better Model for Future Society, and Analyzing Communal Climate Conflict
›Forecasts of future climate conditions are fairly good, but forecasts of future socioeconomic conditions are another story. To get a sense of how climate change will impact society, many resort to simply layering future climate conditions on top of current socioeconomic conditions. That’s a mistake, write Wolfgang Lutz and Raya Muttarak in Nature Climate Change. “We see little value in the purely hypothetical exercise of assessing potential impacts of the future climate on a society that will not exist in the future.”
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Can Demographic-Environmental Stress Contribute to Mass Atrocities? And the Future of Arctic Cooperation
›In a brief published by the Stanley Foundation, Cullen Hendrix explores how “the degradation and overexploitation of renewable sources…and unequal access to these resources” can make societies more or less susceptible to experiencing mass atrocities. Hendrix proposes that “demographic-environmental stress” is most likely to contribute to mass atrocities (genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity) in agricultural societies that have a high level of group identity-driven politics and economics, exclusionary political institutions, political actors that deprive certain groups, or when governments have low legitimacy.
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Backdraft #5: Ken Conca on the Good, Bad, and Ugly of Water Conflict and Cooperation
›In international development, conflict is often used as shorthand for violent conflict, and avoiding conflict is considered a priority. But “it’s important to recognize that conflict is not always bad and cooperation is not always good,” says Ken Conca in this week’s episode of “Backdraft.”
Showing posts from category environmental security.