6 ms·

Climate change can fuel wars

37 points by La-ang 7y ago

Alex3917 7y ago
9/11 and the Iraq / Afghanistan wars were ostensibly caused by climate change, so this isn’t exactly new.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Do you really mean 'ostensibly' there? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a... doesn't list it as a cause. Maybe you mean it was an indirect underlying cause behind the more commonly stated causes? In which case that's not the ostensible cause - it's the opposite of ostensible!
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    I mean if you believe the videos of Bin Laden taking credit for 9/11 weren’t faked by the government, he cites anger with U.S. policy on Israel and climate change as the two things he was most upset about with the U.S. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/29/osama-bin-laden-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/29/osama-bi...
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      If you think that video wasn't faked as you say that the other causes are the ostensible ones and this is the genuine cause. You've got the meaning of 'ostensible' the wrong way around.
klenwell 7y ago
I remember seeing a white paper (from some government agency or the RAND institute) back in the 90's (actually probably learned about in some NPR interview) that predicted wars over water starting around the point we are now (approaching 2020). I've seen some news reports that this is already happening. One example being tensions/conflict between Israel and Lebanon. News reports generally treat it as an ideological conflict but this argues looking at the material basis for the conflict. Another lesser example being legal/political wrangling here in western US among states over Colorado River rights. It'd be interesting to dig up some of those white papers / predictions and see how credible accurate their predictions like this were. Not exactly the same thing as climate change but certainly connected.
- anonu 7y ago
  No doubt wars are fought over water. But I think any conflict between Lebanon (and specifically Hezbollah) and Israel is about way more than water.
  - klenwell 7y ago
    The way I see it is that they would have a much better chance of finding a way to overcome these ideological/historical differences through trade if they weren't constantly being exacerbated by these more basic economic/environmental issues.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  The Colorado River rights problems are exactly why "it could happen in the US too" and it isn't just an "international problem" to US audiences. I wouldn't call it a "lesser example" because mini wars (especially if you count industrial sabotage) have been fought over it in the past, and sure California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico are friends right now, but given a few more years of droughts in the US southwest and that is likely to change.
  - mc32 7y ago
    Somewhere I’ve read California would like to pipe Great Lakes water into the state... but the Great Lakes states entered into a compact with Canada to make it difficult... The idea has been kicked around for decades, but now even some notable scientists have warmed up to the idea.
    - notfromhere 7y ago
      because piping water from a non-renewable lake to a desert is beyond stupid. no need to subsidize building megacities in arid regions
      - mc32 7y ago
        I don’t think it'd be so much (the draught from the lakes) that the St Lawrence becomes a dry wash. Even if parts of Calif are a desert, they become a fertile deserts with water. I imagine some revenue sharing scheme could entice some of the states to send some water.
petermcneeley 7y ago
Climate action can fuel revolutions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-protesters-are-part-of-a-global-backlash-against-climate-change-taxes/2018/12/04/08365882-f723-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-proteste...
- innocentoldguy 7y ago
  France is good example of how governments use the concept of climate change to increase taxes and government control over the masses, and how the masses rebel against those attempts to usurp more and more money and control.
united893 7y ago
This was assessed by the Pentagon back in 2014 > https://web.archive.org/web/20141013222428/https://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/CCARprint.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20141013222428/https://www.acq.o... And it's pretty straightforward: as water, arable land and other resources become scarcer, then groups facing severe shortages will fight over the leftover resources.
eanzenberg 7y ago
Actually the research experts say climate change is a small factor with regards to increased conflict. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01830-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01830-2
- kiliantics 7y ago
  It's hardly a consensus. There is plenty of research suggesting climate change has been a factor in conflicts even now, such as in the Syrian civil war: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1 https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-0005... The Pentagon also has reports on climate change as national security risk.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- danhak 7y ago
  > The conclusion: climate has already increased the risk of armed conflict, but the effect is small relative to the effects of other factors such as unexpected economic events and scarcity of natural resources such as food. The risk posed by climate change is that it will majorly disrupt economies and access to food and water. (Think widespread drought and famine). I find it strange that these experts draw a distinction between these factors.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  The article didn't claim it was a large factor.
innocentoldguy 7y ago
Does anybody have a link to the full article? The introduction paragraphs sound like the issues is more about Islamic extremism than climate change. How does the article attempt to link these two concepts?
d--b 7y ago
It's impossible to tell what the impact of climate change will be overall. Maybe more wars, but maybe less wars... Maybe food will be less scarce... Maybe Congo will have more wars, but maybe by some random fashion, climate change will prevent some kind of world war iii. Climate change is a disaster for the fauna and flora of the world. It will displace a lot of people. But anything more complex is impossible to say.
- danans 7y ago
  > Climate change is a disaster for the fauna and flora of the world. It's a disaster for the current flora and fauna, and social structures of the world. Something will follow, but on very different terms than what we have been used to. To hazard a guess, the bias will be toward flora and fauna (including people) fighting to get in to, and defend shrinking habitable zones. There is a theory that the desertification of the ancient Fertile Crescent, and subsequent dispersal of agricultural and pastoral societies and people, was the result of the their intense farming in a fragile environment. Those people had a place to run to and carry on (the entire unknown-to-them world). No such escape hatch for us.
- r00fus 7y ago
  > Climate change is a disaster for the fauna and flora of the world. Do you consider humans to be fauna?
madengr 7y ago
Regarding the photo in the article, it doesn’t help when you force woman to wear full body coverings in sweltering heat.
- harimau777 7y ago
  Its possible that the protection from the sun outweighs the increased insulation.
- La-ang 7y ago
  Wrong. Men also do the same. Have you heard of the elements? Also can you take your cultural allergies elsewhere or apply them accordingly. This is climate change
tosca 7y ago
Climate change is not real science because it is not falsifiable.
KangLi 7y ago
Climate change as stated is not of course the main cause of wars, but its increasingly becoming one. Fighting for resources is inevitable, even between sages conflict would arise on who is entitled to what. Wait to see these lunatic world leaders shifting their starvation from oil to water. As mentioned it's already happening. To maximize the chaos politicians play this as a card for their agenda, as scarcity reigns, they will use it to scrap vote. There was an article mentioned earlier on HN about a city in India that has completely ran out of drinkable water. I'd say things look pretty grim, even for the optimist.
- La-ang 7y ago
  Chennai

37 points by La-ang 7y ago

Alex3917 7y ago

9/11 and the Iraq / Afghanistan wars were ostensibly caused by climate change, so this isn’t exactly new.

chrisseaton 7y ago
Do you really mean 'ostensibly' there? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a... doesn't list it as a cause. Maybe you mean it was an indirect underlying cause behind the more commonly stated causes? In which case that's not the ostensible cause - it's the opposite of ostensible!
- Alex3917 7y ago
  I mean if you believe the videos of Bin Laden taking credit for 9/11 weren’t faked by the government, he cites anger with U.S. policy on Israel and climate change as the two things he was most upset about with the U.S. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/29/osama-bin-laden-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jan/29/osama-bi...
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    If you think that video wasn't faked as you say that the other causes are the ostensible ones and this is the genuine cause. You've got the meaning of 'ostensible' the wrong way around.

klenwell 7y ago

I remember seeing a white paper (from some government agency or the RAND institute) back in the 90's (actually probably learned about in some NPR interview) that predicted wars over water starting around the point we are now (approaching 2020). I've seen some news reports that this is already happening. One example being tensions/conflict between Israel and Lebanon. News reports generally treat it as an ideological conflict but this argues looking at the material basis for the conflict. Another lesser example being legal/political wrangling here in western US among states over Colorado River rights. It'd be interesting to dig up some of those white papers / predictions and see how credible accurate their predictions like this were. Not exactly the same thing as climate change but certainly connected.

anonu 7y ago
No doubt wars are fought over water. But I think any conflict between Lebanon (and specifically Hezbollah) and Israel is about way more than water.
- klenwell 7y ago
  The way I see it is that they would have a much better chance of finding a way to overcome these ideological/historical differences through trade if they weren't constantly being exacerbated by these more basic economic/environmental issues.
WorldMaker 7y ago
The Colorado River rights problems are exactly why "it could happen in the US too" and it isn't just an "international problem" to US audiences. I wouldn't call it a "lesser example" because mini wars (especially if you count industrial sabotage) have been fought over it in the past, and sure California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico are friends right now, but given a few more years of droughts in the US southwest and that is likely to change.
- mc32 7y ago
  Somewhere I’ve read California would like to pipe Great Lakes water into the state... but the Great Lakes states entered into a compact with Canada to make it difficult... The idea has been kicked around for decades, but now even some notable scientists have warmed up to the idea.
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    because piping water from a non-renewable lake to a desert is beyond stupid. no need to subsidize building megacities in arid regions
    - mc32 7y ago
      I don’t think it'd be so much (the draught from the lakes) that the St Lawrence becomes a dry wash. Even if parts of Calif are a desert, they become a fertile deserts with water. I imagine some revenue sharing scheme could entice some of the states to send some water.

petermcneeley 7y ago

Climate action can fuel revolutions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-protesters-are-part-of-a-global-backlash-against-climate-change-taxes/2018/12/04/08365882-f723-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-proteste...

innocentoldguy 7y ago
France is good example of how governments use the concept of climate change to increase taxes and government control over the masses, and how the masses rebel against those attempts to usurp more and more money and control.

united893 7y ago

This was assessed by the Pentagon back in 2014 > https://web.archive.org/web/20141013222428/https://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/CCARprint.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20141013222428/https://www.acq.o... And it's pretty straightforward: as water, arable land and other resources become scarcer, then groups facing severe shortages will fight over the leftover resources.

eanzenberg 7y ago

Actually the research experts say climate change is a small factor with regards to increased conflict. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01830-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01830-2

kiliantics 7y ago
It's hardly a consensus. There is plenty of research suggesting climate change has been a factor in conflicts even now, such as in the Syrian civil war: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1 https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-0005... The Pentagon also has reports on climate change as national security risk.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
danhak 7y ago
> The conclusion: climate has already increased the risk of armed conflict, but the effect is small relative to the effects of other factors such as unexpected economic events and scarcity of natural resources such as food. The risk posed by climate change is that it will majorly disrupt economies and access to food and water. (Think widespread drought and famine). I find it strange that these experts draw a distinction between these factors.
chrisseaton 7y ago
The article didn't claim it was a large factor.

innocentoldguy 7y ago

Does anybody have a link to the full article? The introduction paragraphs sound like the issues is more about Islamic extremism than climate change. How does the article attempt to link these two concepts?

d--b 7y ago

It's impossible to tell what the impact of climate change will be overall. Maybe more wars, but maybe less wars... Maybe food will be less scarce... Maybe Congo will have more wars, but maybe by some random fashion, climate change will prevent some kind of world war iii. Climate change is a disaster for the fauna and flora of the world. It will displace a lot of people. But anything more complex is impossible to say.

danans 7y ago
> Climate change is a disaster for the fauna and flora of the world. It's a disaster for the current flora and fauna, and social structures of the world. Something will follow, but on very different terms than what we have been used to. To hazard a guess, the bias will be toward flora and fauna (including people) fighting to get in to, and defend shrinking habitable zones. There is a theory that the desertification of the ancient Fertile Crescent, and subsequent dispersal of agricultural and pastoral societies and people, was the result of the their intense farming in a fragile environment. Those people had a place to run to and carry on (the entire unknown-to-them world). No such escape hatch for us.
r00fus 7y ago
> Climate change is a disaster for the fauna and flora of the world. Do you consider humans to be fauna?

madengr 7y ago

Regarding the photo in the article, it doesn’t help when you force woman to wear full body coverings in sweltering heat.

harimau777 7y ago
Its possible that the protection from the sun outweighs the increased insulation.
La-ang 7y ago
Wrong. Men also do the same. Have you heard of the elements? Also can you take your cultural allergies elsewhere or apply them accordingly. This is climate change

tosca 7y ago

Climate change is not real science because it is not falsifiable.

KangLi 7y ago

Climate change as stated is not of course the main cause of wars, but its increasingly becoming one. Fighting for resources is inevitable, even between sages conflict would arise on who is entitled to what. Wait to see these lunatic world leaders shifting their starvation from oil to water. As mentioned it's already happening. To maximize the chaos politicians play this as a card for their agenda, as scarcity reigns, they will use it to scrap vote. There was an article mentioned earlier on HN about a city in India that has completely ran out of drinkable water. I'd say things look pretty grim, even for the optimist.

La-ang 7y ago
Chennai