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Climate Change a National Security Issue, Say Local and National Leaders From Pacific Northwest
›The effects of climate change “are here now” and pose a “serious challenge” for the United States, said Alice Hill, White House senior advisor for preparedness and resilience, at the Wilson Center on July 29. [Video Below]
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Beyond Scarcity: Coleen Vogel on Reframing Water Security
›What exactly is meant by “water security?” Different conceptualizations of the problem can lead to different, possibly misguided, solutions, says Coleen Vogel in this week’s podcast. Vogel, professor at the University of Pretoria and a lead author of the IPCC’s 4th and 5th assessment reports, calls for reframing the water security discourse in three key ways.
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What Can the Environmental Community Learn From the Military? Interview With Chad Briggs on Scenario Planning
›September 8, 2014 // By Moses JacksonIs it possible to prepare for the unexpected? Could anyone have foreseen, for instance, a nuclear meltdown triggered by an earthquake-induced tsunami? Or a brutal band of transnational militants quickly capturing Iraq’s largest dam while attempting to establish a new Islamic caliphate? Perhaps not exactly, but that shouldn’t stop us from anticipating unlikely events, says Chad Briggs, a risk assessment expert and strategy director of consulting firm GlobalInt.
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Opportunity Costs: Evidence Suggests Variability, Not Scarcity, Primary Driver of Water Conflict
›Nearly 1 billion people lack reliable access to clean drinking water today. A report by the Water Resources Group projects that by 2030 annual global freshwater needs will reach 6.9 trillion cubic meters – 64 percent more than the existing accessible, reliable, and sustainable supply. This forecast, while alarming, likely understates the magnitude of tomorrow’s water challenge, as it does not account for the impacts of climate change.
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What Can Iraq’s Fight Over the Mosul Dam Tell Us About Water Security?
›The fight for control over “the most dangerous dam in the world” is raging.
Since its capture by Islamic State (IS) militants on August 7 and subsequent attempts by Iraqi government and Kurdish forces to take it back, Iraq’s Mosul Dam has been one of the central components of the government’s surprising and rapid collapse in the country’s northern and western provinces. In fact, one might see the capture of the Mosul Dam as the moment IS ascended from a dangerous insurgent group to an existential threat to Iraq as a state.
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Somali Refugees Show How Conflict, Gender, Environmental Scarcity Become Entwined
›Under international law, someone who flees their country because of conflict or persecution is a refugee, but someone who flees because of inability to meet their basic household needs is not. In the case of Somalia, it is increasingly difficult to make any meaningful distinction between the two.
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Book Review: ‘Oil Sparks in the Amazon: Local Conflicts, Indigenous Populations, and Natural Resources’
›August 18, 2014 // By Roger-Mark De SouzaSince the early 1990s, the rising price of crude oil and other key natural resources – and the resulting drive by governments and private companies to extract those resources – has led to sharp conflicts in Latin America. At the core of these disputes is the clash between national economic interest and the rights of indigenous people inhabiting the land where most natural resources are located.
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Ian Kraucunas on Bridging the Science-Politics Divide for Climate Change
›“Climate change is not just a far-away thing that affects far-away people,” says Ian Kraucunas, deputy director of atmospheric sciences and global change at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in this week’s podcast. “It affects things people here in the U.S. care about – and, in fact, that includes national security.”
Showing posts from category environmental security.