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Climate Change Will Cause More Migration, But That Shouldn’t Scare Anyone
›Last year a Kiribati man, Ioane Teitiota, claimed asylum in New Zealand, stating that his home island, which is on average just two meters above sea level, was becoming uninhabitable thanks to rising seas. So-called “king tides” routinely wash over entire portions of the archipelago.
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Gidon Bromberg: Jordan River Shows Water Can Be a Path to Peace, Generate Will for Change
›At last month’s launch of the USAID Water and Conflict Toolkit at the Wilson Center, Gidon Bromberg explained that the toolkit is about much more than just conflict. “It’s put very much in forefront the possibilities of peacebuilding,” he says in this week’s podcast. “Water is an opportunity in areas where there aren’t many opportunities.”
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In Quest to Understand Climate Change and Conflict, Avoid Simplification
›As the war in Syria shows no signs of letting up, a recent article in Middle Eastern Studies put forward the hypothesis that the brutal conflict was triggered by government mismanagement of the country’s recent drought, which lasted from 2006 to 2010. It’s a story we’ve heard before.
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Climate Change and National Security in an Age of Austerity: The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review
›March 7, 2014 // By Kate DiamondEarlier this week, the Department of Defense released its first Quadrennial Defense Review since fiscal cliffs, shutdowns, and spending cuts hit the federal government. Not surprisingly, “austerity” shows up in almost every chapter of the report. What shows up even more? Climate change. For the second QDR in a row, the Pentagon has called out climate change as a “significant challenge for the United States and the world at large.”
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For Environmental Peacebuilding and Development Work, Collaboration Pays Dividends
›Many recurring problems in natural resource management are the result of missing a key point: ecosystems and human systems are inextricably linked and dynamic, changing constantly. We are part of a socio-ecological system, not external to it, as many previously thought. In the “age of man” – the Anthropocene, as some scientists call the current era – cross-sectoral collaboration is needed to make substantial headway in tackling complex challenges, such as natural resource-related conflict and climate change.
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Bouncing Forward: Why “Resilience” Is Important and Needs a Definition
›As policymakers respond to the threat of climate and environmental change, the concept of resilience has found itself at the center of discussion. Few scientists and policymakers, however, can come to a consensus on how to define, evaluate, and build resilience.
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Geoff Dabelko, Ensia
The Periphery Isn’t Peripheral: Barriers to Cross-Sectoral Collaboration in Development
›February 14, 2014 // By Wilson Center StaffWhat do melting Himalayan glaciers have to do with food security in Cambodia? Not much, thought an aid practitioner trying to boost food security along the lower reaches of the Mekong River – until she heard a colleague working on the Tibetan Plateau describe the downstream implications of climate change in the Himalayas. Everything she was working on, she suddenly realized, could be literally washed away.
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Ready for Change: Notre Dame Launches the Global Adaptation Index
›In 2008 and 2010, the price of many basic food stuffs soared, sparking a series of riots and food crises around the world. People in the poorest countries – those living with the smallest margins – were most affected, while the economies of developed nations were able to absorb the price changes. According to Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Index, how climate change will impact different countries depends not only on their vulnerability to physical changes, but also their ability to absorb these impacts. [Video Below]
Showing posts from category environmental security.