Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Thirdly, climate change and other forms of ecological degradation are likely to lead to
conflict
over access to places of refuge from natural disasters
. The responsible agencies—including the
United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security—point out that there are
already 12 million environmental refugees worldwide, and that this number is destined to soar as
extreme weather events increase in frequency and severity. Typically, when bad weather strikes,
people leave their homes only as a last resort; in the worst instances they have no other option. As
America learned during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when hundreds of thousands were displaced
from farms in the prairies, rapid shifts in population due to forced migration can create economic
and social stresses, including competition for scarce jobs, land, and resources, leading to discrimin-
ation and sometimes violence.
Where do refugees go when the world is already full? Growing economies are usually able
to absorb immigrants and governments may even encourage immigration in order to keep wages
down. But when economic growth ceases, immigrants are often seen as taking jobs away from
native-born workers.
For this reason as well, conflict will appear both within and between countries. Low-lying island
nations may disappear completely, and cross-border, weather-driven migrations will increase dra-
matically. Inhabitants of coastal communities will move further inland. Farmers in drought-plagued
areas will pick up stakes. But can all of these people be absorbed into shantytowns in the world's
sprawling megacities? Or will at least some of these cities themselves see an exodus of population
due to an inability to maintain basic life-support services?
Lastly, climate change, water scarcity, high oil prices, vanishing credit, and the leveling off of
per-hectare productivity and the amount of arable land are all combining to create the conditions for
a historic food crisis
, which will impact the poor first and most forcibly. High food prices breed so-
cial instability—whether in 18th-century France or 21st-century Egypt. As today's high prices rise
further, social instability could spread, leading to demonstrations, riots, insurgencies, and revolu-
tions.
1
In summary, conflict in the decades ahead will likely center on the four factors of money, energy,
land, and food. These sources of conflict will overlap in various ways. While economic inequality
will not itself be
at the root of
all this conflict (one could argue that population growth is a deeper
if often unacknowledged cause of strife), inequality does seem destined to
play a role
in most con-
flict, whether the immediate trigger is extreme weather, high food prices, or energy shortages.
This is not to say that all conflict will be over money, energy, land, or food. Undoubtedly reli-
gion will provide the ostensible banner for contention in many instances. However, as so often in
history, this is likely to be a secondary rather than a primary driver of discord.
War and Peace in a Shrinking Economy
Will increasing conflict lead to expanding violence?
Not if neuropsychologist Stephen Pinker is right. In his expansive and widely praised topic
The
Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
, Pinker claims that, in general, violence
has waned during the past few decades. He argues that this tendency has ancient roots in our shift
from peripatetic hunting and gathering to settled farming; moreover, during the past couple of cen-
turies the trend has greatly intensified. With the emergence of Enlightenment philosophy and its re-
spect for the individual came what Pinker calls the Humanitarian Revolution. Much more recently,
after World War II, violence was suppressed first by the “mutually assured destruction” policies
