Thinking the African Food Crisis - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 785

The very uncertainty of the effects of global climate change (global climate change
modelsarerobustonsystemdynamicsbutweakonregionalandlocalpredictions)is
antithetical to the sort of predictive modeling exercises practiced by the Club of Rome.
he securitization of the environment not only embraces threats to food, agrarian,
pastoralandwatersystemsbutnowencompassesthelikelihoodofconlictandvio-
lencearoundaccesstoscarceresources(Dalby2009;USDepartmentofDefense2011).
Implicitinthesciencebehindthecurrentglobalclimatechangedebateisaworldview
somewhat at odds with the Dawinian orthodoxy of evolutionary gradualism (Boal
2009). Climate could, and has, changed (historically), but for human occupation
andlivelihoodthisrepresentsadeephistoricaltime—thevery longue duree . What is
on offer now is something unimaginable until relatively recently: abrupt, radical, and
life-threateningshitsframedinthelanguageofuncertainty,unpredictability,andcon-
tingency.Itisanemergentscienceofplanetarydisasterdemandinganurgentpublic
response—political,policy,civic,andbusiness—ofanequalmagnitudeandgravity.
Global warming encompasses, and has direct consequences for, two of the most fun-
damental human provisioning systems, food and energy, but to these one can add war,
conlictandmilitarism,criticalinfrastructures,andsystemicinancialrisk,allofwhich
are now seen to be inseparably and organically linked in a complex of networks of tele-
connectedefects(OECD2003).hisworldviewmobilizesandenrollspowerfulactors
around the threat of massive, catastrophic risks and uncertainties. Central to this vision
is a construal of the nature of biological life itself, drawing especially upon the molecu-
laranddigitalsciences—complexity,networks,andinformationareitsavatars—which
shapethenatureofwhatistobegovernedandhow.Iflifeisconstitutedthroughcom-
plex and continual adaptation and emergence, it rests upon a sense of radical uncer-
tainty in which danger and security form an unstable present, what Dillon and Reid
(2009,85) callalife“continuouslybecomingdangerous.”AshAmin(2012,138) seesthis
as “the condition of calamity,” or catastrophism:
herecurrence,spread,severityandmutabilityoftheworld'snaturalandsocial
hazardsareconsideredassymptomaticofthisstate(ofpermanentrisk),andits
latent conditions are understood to be too volatile or random and non-linear to
permitaccuratepredictionandevasiveaction.Intheapocalypticimaginary,hazard
and risk erupt as unanticipated emergencies, disarming in every manifestation and
in every way.
Inthisaccounteachthreatispotentiallycatastrophicandthedisasterisimminentorat
leastforeseeable,thenearfutureisprioritized(preemption,precaution,andpreparation
areitskeydeployments),andthecalamityisacrisisofsecurityrequiringsecuritization
(Anderson2010;Guyer2009;Floyd2010).
Against this backdrop, the old models of Sahelian development have been replaced
with new modalities that can render the uncertainties of global climate change think-
ableandsomethingthatcanbepreparedforandremediated.Itisatthispointthat
culture—especially institutions, many of which are indigenous or hybrids of local
customandthemodern—meetsupwiththeso-calledresiliencyschoolandtheories