Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research. Research suggests that violent conflict is affected by climate change and this could become increasingly worse in the future. Barnett, J., Adger, W. (2007) suggest that climate change undermines human security by reducing the access to natural resources that sustain people’s way of life. Climate change also has the capacity to undermine states as well by cutting off the states ability to provide opportunities and services that help maintain life and which help to maintain and build peace in daily life. With access to natural resources diminishing and the state not being able to provide opportunities and services that help maintain life and human security this all may lead to increased violent conflict.
Barnett, J., Adger, W. (2007) futher suggest “that there is a need for systematic, comparative and cross-scale research to enhance understanding of the connections between climate change, human security and violence. This includes understanding the ways in which it may affect environmental changes in localities, the extent to which people are susceptible to damage from those changes, and their capacities to avoid or adapt to them so that their livelihoods can be sustained and their needs and values can continue to be satisfied” (Barnett, 2007, pg. 651). This research would also have to include the ways in which people are affected by climate change and most importantly how they respond to it in the sense of their livelihood.
The major contributions that papers has to the class are the four main principals. First, it explains how climate changes may weaken human security by limiting access to and the quality of natural resources required for daily ...
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...ability as compared to climate change investigates the diverse array of social and environmental factors operating over time. These factors include the sensitivity of resources such as freshwater, soils, reefs and fisheries to sudden and incremental changes in climate, the degree to which households and communities rely on these resources to meet their needs and values, and the capacity of social systems to adapt to changes in the temporal distribution and abundance of these resources so that households' and communities' needs and values can continue to be satisfied.
REFERENCES
Barnett, J., Adger, W. (2007). Climate change, human security and violent conflict. School of Social and Enviromental Enquiry, University of Melbourne.
Bartol, A. (2008). Origins of Criminal Behavior: Biological Factors. In Miller, H. Violent Offenders. Reading 2. pgs 47-87.
Antarctic’s ice melt and accelerating sea level rise, the growing number of large wildfires, intense heat wave shocks, severe drought and blizzards, disrupted and decreased food supply, and extreme storm events are increasing to happen in many areas world wide and these are just some of the consequences of global warming. The fossil fuel we burn for energy coal, natural gas, and oil plus the loss of forests due to disforestation, in the southern hemisphere are all contributors for climate change. In the past three decades, every single year was warmer then the previous year and the warmest 12 years were recorded since 1998. We are overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and trapping the heat and recently, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere reached 400 pmm. Not just environmental issues are rising due to carbon dioxide increase but more and miscellaneous issues are appearing as climate change becomes more severe. For example, regional models and local analyses agree that Mongolia has become noticeably warmer and the climate change effect is damaging their millennial of historic nomadic lifestyle and even came to the peek of extinction. The Mongolian nomadic pastoralists became highly vulnerable to many an unusual climate impacts and extreme temperature fluctuation that have led to inadequate pasture land and loss of enormous number of livestock, often faces hostile environmental conditions that led o entrenched pastoral poverty. This essay focuses on how the climate change impacts the qualitative and quantitative value of indigenous culture and nomadic life style, and how the economy struggles in the magnitudes of massive migration of nomads to urban area while it fails to value t...
Climate change has become of the world’s major issue today. The earth’s climate is always changing in a very fast and also in different ways. Climate changes affect our lives psychologically, emotional and also physically. Climate change is defined as a long term change in the earth’s climate, especially a change due to the increase in the average atmospheric temperatures. Due to this change in temperature, a lot of changes has occurred in our environment, these changes include rising sea levels, flooding, melting of polar ice caps, hotter days, colder nights and heat waves. These climate changes plays an important role in shaping our natural ecosystem, our human economics and also the most important, it affects the human race. For
Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, written by journalist and professor Christian Parenti, tours the “Tropic of Chaos,” a belt of what Parenti describes as damaged post-colonial, mid-latitude regions that are beginning to experience the biggest impacts of global climate change. Parenti attempts to understand and explain how the world’s current state of environmental change has escalated the existing social conflicts of violence, poverty, and military conflict. Tropic of Chaos historically analyzes the legacy left behind from Cold War militarism and neoliberal policies and how they have worked together simultaneously and sometimes distinctly to cause weak states to descend into “failed states.” Rich countries or the “Global North” responses of climate change have been authoritative; Parenti provides his alternative suggestions for what he believes will promote a more sustainable world.
The two essays by Michael Pollan and Curtis white talk about climate change in regards to the relationship between the environment and human beings. Although the two essays share the same topic, they take the subject and engage the readers in totally different points of views. Pollan’s essay talks about global and ecological responsibility being a personal virtue while Curtis discusses the socio-economic or political issues underlying sustainability (Pollan; White). These two essays are very different in terms of voice; however these pieces of writing are both important for people all over the world to read. Climate change and environmental disasters are a real issue. Just this year, there have been more storms, cyclones, earthquakes and typhoons all over the world. One cannot look at the state of many developing counties where the majority of the population is exposed and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This issue on developing a viable solution for the problem of anthropogenic gases and global warming is long from being found. Not only this, many people do not want to hear about this issue since they do not think it is real. Unless people have tangible proof that their cars, thermostats and aerosol cans are contributing to climate change, they are not going to give up their lifestyles. By synthesizing the two essays, one can see that there is a need for change and that it is not an issue which should be dealt with in terms of ecological factors or even personal virtue. The social, economic and political factors affecting this problem and the move towards real sustainability should also be a topic that will raise awareness.
...ed communities, developing countries are more vulnerable to environmental degradation as well as unintended economic development activities (Arrow et al.,1995). Communities which located in pacific Island are threatened by sea level rises progressively and violent tropical storms and high tides, as well as other disasters (Gray and Duncan, 2012; Uy et al., 2011) so there is an urgent need to utilize effective adaptation (IPCC, 2009). As a result, livelihoods in tourism might be increasingly threatened (Payet, 2007); and health is jeopardized after floods due to increased incidences of disease (Reid et al., 2007). Among others, food security is more threatened by climate change events, thus communities require essential resources and skills to adapt to change as well as robust livelihood strategies to enable people to absorb shocks stem from change (Uy et al., 2011).
Human geography as an academic discipline seeks to understand the interconnectedness of space, place and landscape over time, and in doing so it is primarily concerned with the relations between human beings and the natural world (Daniels et al., 2008). Subsequently, both human and physical geographies are inherently linked - human geography works to understand the effects of physical geographical changes, such as climate change, on humanity. It is this greater understanding of climate change and its social implications which can enable human beings to respond on a variety of local, national and global scales to mitigate or solve problems. This essay
“An introduction to climate change.” Natural Resource Defense Council. Natural Resources Defense Council 8 November 2015 n. pag. Web. 28 November 2015.
The first part of this essay discusses what the human species has done to deal with the problem of climate change. While some improvements have been made, the problem has not been addressed aggressively enough to stop the damage. What is amazing about this is the denial of so many people that problems exist. If they do realize the risks, they are simply not taking actions to contain the damage.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, climate change is a threat to the world’s basic necessities because it affects our food and water security. Therefore, businesses should seriously evaluate mitigation efforts as climate change has a drastic impact upon everyone. Extreme catastrophic events also increase the rates of the transmission of infectious diseases through the consumption of unclean water and contaminated food. These conditions will force people to migrate to other areas trying to avoid these health risk factors. Other nations are most likely to deal with the adverse effects of global warming than the others. “The UN IPCC report noted in their findings that there are potential humanitarian risks that climate change poses for the world’s vulnerable populations. For instance, climate change has already cut into the global food supply with the recent decline of global crop yields like wheat production. Accordingly, the report associated climate change to the rising food prices and political instability in Asia and Africa after the food price inflation in 2008.”
Due to climate changes, we are a “gradual and uncertain rather than immediate and obvious” process, we as humans cannot understand it (Jamieson, 102). In addition, climate change effects have no geographical bounds and because very few people pay attention to events that occur beyond national boundaries, most people are oblivious to its existence. Jamieson makes the point that climate change must be thought rather than sensed, and we as humans are not very good at thinking (Jamieson, 103). On top of that, even if we succeed in thinking that something is a threat, we are less reactive than if we sense that it is a threat. Since we cannot even comprehend climate change's presence in our world right now, it also makes it extremely difficult for us to comprehend how our anthropogenic actions of today will affect future generations all over the world.
In order to assess climate change from a security standpoint it is necessary to consider its potential future implications as well as their magnitude for different states and groups. It is clear that everybody will bear the effects of climate change, although the effects will be uneven and disproportionately distributed. States with less adaptive capacity, which can be determined by levels of “human health and food security, self-reliance, governmental capacity and poverty/development” , intensifies their vulnerability to the effects of climate change. The manifestations of climate change in the future ma...
“The world is over-armed and peace in under-funded” This phrase said by Ban-Ki Moon, security general of the United Nations emphasizes the interconnection between poverty and conflict. Though both terms can be used separately the two often interplay with one another when dealing with the issue of human security. In the current year, 2013 citizens in undeveloped and developing countries suffer from lack of human security which is essential in preventing poverty. According the United Nations there are seven areas of security a state must provide in order to protect their citizens from freedom of fear and want (Baylis, Smith & Owens, 2011). Unfortunately, though poverty takes lives everyday citizens that are living under the poverty line have a tendency to be more vulnerable to conflict. Conflict can affect human security in two ways, one it can be the cause of the issue or two it can make the issue worse. By using the examples of Nepal and Sir Lanka, their experiences reveal just how conflict and poverty interplay with one another.
The whole documentary tackled consequences which also have consequences. This in turn somehow forms a chain reaction of consequences which are also interrelated. As a result of these, climate change is considered as an accelerant to instability and a catalyst for conflict.
Climate change has been an extremely controversial topic in recent history and continues to create much debate today. Many questions concerning climate change’s origins and its potential affect on the globe are not fully understood and remain unanswered. What is climate change? Is climate change happening? Is it a natural cycle of the world or are there other catalysts involved such as human activity? What proof is there? What data correlations show climate change is accelerated by humans? How serious is climate change and how will it affect the future of our globe? What are we doing to address climate change? Should we really be concerned about climate change? Questions such as these have made climate change a very serious issue in today’s world and created the ideology of climatism. The issue of climate change has affected many different aspects of our lives and the world we live in. Policymaking, human activism, technologies, emission control, global warming, alternative energy sources and many other things have been greatly affected by the mania of climate change. This research report will present climate change in a light of common sense and rationality that will take a grounded discussion of the science behind climate change, global warming, human activity, and how the ideology of climatism has corrupted and driven the actions to combat climate change.
The Earth is currently locked in perpetuating spiral of climate change. While the global climate has unarguably been changing since the dawn of it's manifestation, the once steadied ebb and flow of climate change has become increasingly more unpredictable.The risk of rising sea levels, and drought plaguing the fresh water supply, during the time that flooding and sporadic storm conditions turn once fully inhabited regions into uninhabitable death traps. Climate change catalyzed by human's increased production of carbon dioxide, is more noticeable than ever in our recorded history (United States, 2014 National Climate Assessment). Thankfully however, with the changing weather conditions due to carbon related emissions, the change in public opinion about their personalized influence on climate change is also increasing. Kevin Liptak Jethro Mullen, and Tom Cohen note that In reaction to the most recent governmental report on climate change, even the U.S. government believes that a stronger approach needs to be taken to correct our self-generated cataclysm.