There is growing recognition that global warming is having significant impact on world security, particularly in regions that are already prone to instability. This is evidenced by multi-year droughts, rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, increased flooding and hurricane and earthquake activity.
These climate change trends effecting the health and well-being of populations around the world are being considered at the highest levels of government in both the U.S. and abroad, not only as “environmental” concerns but also as risks to national security.
To this end, Mark Levy, the deputy director for the Center of International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, came to SUNY New Paltz last week to speak on how these climate trends impact the stability of nations and the well-being of populations, including our own here in the Hudson Valley.
After an introduction noting that Levy worked in Rockland County, the speaker took the microphone and said, “I’m happy to be here representing Rockland County,” to which the audience laughed. “Even though our institute is only 10 miles north of Columbia University’s main campus, my colleagues always say that we’re in ‘upstate’ New York. Well, now it’s great to truly be in upstate New York.”
‘Grim’ outlook
Pleasantries aside, Levy noted that the research he and dozens of scientists across the country and world have been conducting is “grim.”
He noted that war has always been known as being “bad” for the environment, referencing oil wells being blown up in Kuwait and millions of tons of radioactive solid waste created during the Kosovo and Lebanon conflicts. War has always been dangerous to the human population and the ecosystem, but what’s a more recent, novel policy debate is not how war is dangerous but how climate change is the more pressing threat to national security, he said.
“Just yesterday, Hillary Clinton, who has been named by President-elect Barack Obama, mentioned in her second sentence to the press that ‘climate change is a key threat to U.S. security,” Levy said. “Why is this ‘new?’ Well, it’s not new in a sense. In Napolean’s effort to invade Russia in 1812-1813 his army encountered severe climates that affected the outcome.”
Levy went on to reference the smallpox epidemic and the bubonic plague. Both were widespread diseases that impacted centuries-old European conquest. But there was also historical food riots leading to the overthrowing of monarchies, dictatorships and other ‘stable’ political entities.
“These things are not ‘new’ necessarily, but what is new is the fact that international conflicts are in rapid decline,” he said. “Battle deaths are down – much in part to an international community that is better educated, better prepared, with more guidelines and coherence than it was in the past to deal with conflict,” thus staving off world wars of global proportions, he said.
Massive impact
According to Levy and his research, coupled with and solidified by global research from various nonprofit research scientific groups, 60 percent of the world’s ecosystem has been degraded; 80 percent of the earth’s woodlands and surfaces have been significantly altered and degraded by direct human contact; the 20 percent left virtually untouched are predominantly lands that consist solely of sand or ice – in other words, lands that are uninhabitable by humans.
“While we’ve become better at managing conflict, we’ve become increasingly worse at managing environmental issues that threaten the very well-being and safety of us all,” Levy said.
The lines drawn in the past to protect national security were etched out by possible Communist threats from the Russians, invasions by Japan or Germany. But now the greatest threat, according to Levy and his fellow researchers across the globe, are the flooding, droughts, food-deprivation, lack of water, pandemics and other results of climate change that would blur territorial boundaries, force migration, require a response from the U.S. and likely threaten stability here and abroad.
To prove his point, Levy pointed to various graphs which indicated “hot spots” around the globe where there were continuous internal conflicts and war. He then overlaid that map with predictions of where greater drought, flooding and other natural disasters or lack of resources could occur. This only heightened the vulnerability of the current “hot spots” and broadened the potential “hot spots” to China, Germany, South American and places in the U.S. itself.
So, what to do?
Unfortunately, Levy was not too optimistic on this front. He said there needs to be funding in place, a re-instituted Federal Department (axed by the Bush administration) to deal solely with climate change, and progressive, creative, out-of-the-box thinking to resolve or at least temper these problems before their impact is unleashed to an extent that is irrevocable.
Levy’s presentation included alarming evidence that in areas where there were prolonged, atypical periods of draught increased the internal warfare exponentially.
He also noted that with climate change came an erratic weather pattern with spikes and valleys so dramatic that no one could predict where the next lightning bolt would strike. Among all of the increases – which included droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, high winds, earthquakes, tsunamis -- the greatest increase was in the amount of floods over the passed several decades.
So what’s the answer or at least one of the possible solutions?
Put money toward greater research and data collection, have that data inform radical policy change, educate and think boldly as to how to approach climate change, he said.
“We are only in the incubation stages of our research. We have little funding for it, and yet the impacts, the possible threat to national security and the well-being of our population is at incredible risk,” he said.