Arctic environmental security and abrupt climate change - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 108

to climate change relies in large part upon dependence to environmental sys-
tems, and the redundant human systems that can adapt to changing conditions.
Despite what are perhaps common perceptions in the literature that regions
in Africa and Asia are most vulnerable to climate changes, neither North
America nor Europe have very adaptive systems that can account for sudden
changes (Kaplan 1994; Paskal 2009). To cite a tangential example, the sudden
loss of bee colonies in many regions has left agricultural crops without proper
pollination, and without such an environmental resource crops are therefore
even more vulnerable to other environmental changes (Ratnieks and Carreck
2010). Although we often consider single-factor impacts to underlying envi-
ronmental systems (e.g. lower rainfall, warmer average air temperatures, etc.),
the more likely consequences of abrupt climate change will be multi-factorial
impacts, whose attendant risks will therefore be multiplied. It is only through
increasing resilience in systems that adaptation can be possible.
Social, political and economic systems
It is at this point that the cascading effects of climate changes in the Arctic
are likely to meet security definitions of Arctic states. Abrupt environmen-
tal changes will not only force a re-examination of geopolitics as transit and
resource access shifts, but such changes may also overwhelm critically impor-
tant systems underlying the security of states globally, such that shifts in one
area may spark cascading effects that impact distant regions. For example,
significant melt of ice sheets may impact energy infrastructure on the coasts,
while disruptions to global ocean currents or massive releases of methane
would spark situations of food insecurity, itself contributing to loss of liveli-
hoods and government instability as far away as India. Unforeseen events,
such as the 2010 fires in Russia, are examples of where the inability to iden-
tify potential risks in advance leaves both populations and critical systems
vulnerable to new risks. The fires destroyed one-fifth of Russian grain crops,
threatened a nuclear facility in Sarov and destroyed a naval air station and
200 aircraft in Kolomna (BBC 2010). The Arctic illustrates where significant
environmental changes are already taking place, yet most analyses remain
fixed on a regional focus when it comes to potential impacts. Instead, we
should become more sensitive to future scenarios that fall outside currently
recognized risk parameters (National Intelligence Council 2012).
Projects and initiatives are under way to provide strategic environmen-
tal assessments to policymakers, and to link the research community more
effectively with interested parties in government, non-profit work and busi-
ness. For example, the US Department of Energy sponsored a prototype early
warning system from 2007 to 2010 for potential energy and environmen-
tal impacts at a global scale, the Global Energy and Environment Strategic
Ecosystem (GlobalEESE). US military services are similarly attempting to
address emerging risks from environmental changes in the Arctic, such as