Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC, has just finished airing the three-part series Climate Wars, based on the Gwynne Dyer book of the same name. I haven’t yet finished reading the book, but the thesis is easily summarized: If you thought that the effects of climate change only included withering droughts, torrential storms, and general freaky-deakiness, you’ve missed one of the big ones: anthropogenic mass death, or as the political scientists call it, "war."
Yup, on top of all the other things we’ll have to worry about in a melting world, there’s the sad fact that we’ll have more and more reasons to kill each other over dwindling water and food supplies. When you consider that the 20th century was bloody enough as economic and industrial opportunities were expanding, the 21st century is looking mighty depressing if you believe that wars can start over resource scarcity.
You can download the podcasts of Parts I, II, and III of Climate Wars here, though I can’t testify as to how long they’ll stay up there. So give it a listen soon. And do check out the book—like I said, haven’t finished it, but it’s excellent so far.
The tar sands blow
Feed the world sustainably by 2050? Yes, we can!
Comments
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biodiversivist Posted 3:06 am
05 Feb 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Russ Posted 3:32 am
05 Feb 2009
As for the lithium, that one's tougher. How do you pretext your way into Bolivia? Does America still give special ops aid to Peru vs. the Shining Path? (Is there still such a thing as Shining Path anymore? I never hear of them.)
Well, that seems to be the closest likely border. Of course they could always try another coup, against that pinko Morales.
(As that NYT piece said, how dare they try to control our lithium!)
You know what I fear might be true - given the religious attitude many green cornucopians have regarding electric cars (anything, ANYTHING to keep the happy motoring utopia cruising along), I bet they'd have mixed feeling about an out-and-out lithium war, if the administration assured them that it was the only way to build all those batteries.
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