The strangely narrowing argument linking climate change to global conflict [updated]

OP-ED: "Terror In the Weather Forecast," by Thomas Homer-Dixon, New York Times, 24 April 2007, p. A25.

Homer-Dixon is a smart guy, but he peddles the worst sort of mushy fear mongering, constantly declaring the world near collapse from all its brittleness, lack of ingenuity, system vulnerabilities and the like.

Naturally, he loves the potential of global warming, citing CNA's recent study by retired flags where they all opine ominously, but with no real sense of historical causality, about how climate change equates to a "threat multiplier."

History actually provides scant evidence that disasters or tough weather or water shortages cause war. Truly, the historical record portrays more the opposite: people tend to come together in hard times.

Now, if you want to say economic collapse, then your argument improves, but as I've said before, all indications are that it will pay to be rich in the global climate change future, and that it will suck to be poor--no matter where you live. My answer to that is to make people richer, especially those poor now, and I start that process with connectivity.

Read this concluding bit from Homer-Dixon:

By weakening rural economies, increasing unemployment and disrupting livelihoods, global warming will increase the frustrations and anger of hundreds of millions of people in vulnerable countries. Especially in Africa, but also in some parts of Asia and Latin America, climate change will undermine already frail governments--and make challenges from violent groups more likely--by reducing revenues, overwhelming bureaucracies and revealing how incapable these governments are of helping their citizens.

Okay, I'll buy that. I'll also buy that a lot of bad things in this world make those bad trends worse, and I'll also argue--in the vein of Bjorn Lomborg--that, bang for the buck, there's a ton of better ways to address every bad thing on Homer-Dixon's list before turning to global warming, the course of which we can tilt but slightly, but not without significant shorter-run costs (stretching across decades) whose unintended side effects--I'm gonna go out on a limb here--are far larger than we can imagine.

I'm not saying don't do whatever makes reasonable sense to cut CO2 emissions. I love new technology. I want it spread everywhere. I love new and better ways of making energy happen. I want those spread everywhere too.

But when I read Homer-Dixon on this stuff, I can't help but wonder how many other subject causes can easily be inserted into this generalized logic of his. I mean, a lot of things out there reduce revenues in frail states. A lot of things overwhelm bureaucracies in frail states. A lot of things reveal how incapable weak states are in meeting the needs of their citizens.

So why this amazing bandwagoning on the link between global climate change and increased instability and conflicts?

Because, I've got to tell you, if you think going after CO2 emissions is how we shrink the Gap, I think you're losing your grip on reality. To me, this rush to pile on here is just plain odd, reflecting that Calgon-take-me-away sense so many people seem to be getting on the Long War against radical extremism, which--yeah--will get more extreme if the Gap suffers more due to warming, but global warming sure as hell ain't its driver, nor the driver of frail states, nor the cause of disconnectedness, which tends to be complex even as--yes again--it will probably get worse with global warming.

I'm just saying, dealing with global warming is not rising to some great challenge of the future security environment. It's rising to the great challenge of the future environmental environment.

Yes, a great thing to pursue. But there are many great things to pursue, and while everything connects to everything, casting those connections in terms of simplistic one-way causalities is--to me--not very helpful.

I guarantee you, that whatever's freaking people out most is what Homer-Dixon is running with hardest. If tomorrow climate change gets boring, he's onto something else that will--naturally, inevitably, inexorably--lead to our civilizational downfall.

But to me, listening to security people all of a sudden fall in love with global climate change as "the next big thing" is somewhat sad. Security doesn't flow from one source, but from many, the most important one being rules. We have far more rules on the environment today than we did yesterday, and we'll have far more tomorrow.

That's all good.

But a rising environmental challenge itself is not a cause for security alarmism. It's logically a cause for better environmental policies, smarter business practices, and marketizing more opportunities for human ingenuity, which is--contrary to Homer-Dixon's patronizing tone--inexhaustible.

Update: Steve wrote about this same article today: Climate Terror

Comments

[shiva]

"Because, I've got to tell you, if you think going after CO2 emissions is how we shrink the Gap, I think you're losing your grip on reality."

Pretty sure I understand your post's point, but I think I disagree with this statement.

I think that making carbon emissions more expensive, to help incentivize distributed (rather than centralized) energy generation like small scale wind and solar, would help shrink the gap. Analogy is how distributed communication (cell phones/SMS) have been a massively connecting force in gap countries that leapfrogged analog telephone poles and wires. I think the kind of tech and tech networks you use to shrink the gap has profound long term socio-economic implications. It seems to me that fostering low carbon tech in the gap as a key strategy to address climate change would also happen to promote connectivity and longterm socio-economic resilience because of it more distributed nature, better than business-as-usual development. Theres plenty of anecdotes of IMF/WorldBank projects for big centralized powerplants and mines that end up just concentrate wealth and corruption in gap states, with the results being as much dislocation and disconnection as economic development. In the short term, climate-safe tech means less power to more people, which i think means more total connectivity long term. Maybe this is a graduate thesis question. Probably already been done.

With respect to your position on whether these choices impact security, maybe the current China predicament is kind of the experiment for this question-- as air and water pollution there gets worse and sickens/kills more people, will new core levels of employment continue to sufficiently appease those communities suffering gap-like public health statistics? Maybe not if the corrupt local authorities are more widely identified as being to blame for the gap like conditions?

Sorry for the long comment. thanks for the provocative post.

[Nathan Machula]

I just saw John Stossel speak last night, and he made the exact same point about poverty. He wasn't even talking about third world countries, but right here in the US. If the amounts of time peoples' lives are shortened by different causes are averaged, poverty is by far more detrimental than terrorism, gun crimes, or any other news media hobby horse. The best way to shrink the gap—globally or our own mini-gaps—is to create more wealth.

[Brad Arnold]

If you don't know what hydrate is, you don't know about global warming:

Hydrate contains twice the carbon of all fossil fuel, and whereas fossil fuel needs to be burned to emit GHG, hydrate needs only to melt.

Briefly, carbon in the soil is "eaten" by microbes, and in the absence of oxygen the microbes emit methane (CH4). Some of that methane gets trapped in ice called hydrate.

There is about 400 billion tons of methane trapped in permafrost hydrate (20% of the land on earth is permafrost). 50% of the surface permafrost is expected to melt by 2050, and over 90% by 2100.

A release of less than 30 billion tons of methane would be like doubling the CO2 in the air.

Worse, there is an estimated 10,000 billion tons of methane hydrate under the ocean. Substantial quantities of this has melted before with catastrophic results (55 million years ago-the PETM ushered in the Age of Mammals, and 250 million years ago-the "Great Dying" killed most life on earth).\In other words, the carbon cycle has been upset before (possibly by volcanic eruptions), causing a chain reaction. Mankind's GHG emissions are over 30 times stronger a trigger than past severe runaway global warming events. This means the chain reaction will happen sooner, unfold faster, and therefore be much, much more severe.

[Brad B.]

I'm more skeptical of mankind's effect on climate change that Tom, but it's heartening to see that Tom has a very pragmatic view of all of this. No surprise there. It'd be great if the debate could be elevated to this level where you can find some area between "all" or "nothing". People who believe in a warming trend but question our ability to do anything about it are accused of denying that it's happening at all. People who believe it's happening and that we caused it are pressured to believe that we're at a "tipping point" and have only days to act and that no action is too drastic. To steal one of Tom's sayings, "How utterly binary."

I wonder if Homer-Dixon is concerned about the economic fallout that would happen if the Kyoto agreement was enacted. Sure, it'd be less severe than a worse-case global warming scenario, but it'd happen a hell of a lot faster with less time to prepare.

I'm curious to see if Mr. Barnett will get some heat for this.

[antonymous]

I agree with shiva's sentiment - especially regarding the benefits of distributed energy generation. Big-box energy solutions are out and will forever be seen as wasteful, especially if they're Core-driven/imposed. However, I don't think that low-carbon energy will help shrink the gap, per se. I just don't see the market for it, unless we're talking about selling carbon sinks. Then again, I didn't see the Gap's explosion into the cell-phone market coming either, so maybe I'm missing something!

Selling climate change as a security issue can have benefits though. What better excuse to get, say, the 20 most powerful economies together to discuss security, energy, and climate change? Maybe we could call it the G20 ;) No one is willing to play with the UN Security Council anymore, and it's becoming an excuse for inaction. This is bad news for the legitimacy of global governance in general, which will become more essential in tackling global problems.

[Michael]

Shiva,One thing to remember is that many- if not all- carbon reduction schemes in the third world have non-technical requirements needing met.For example, the localized power sources you mentioned; how much do they cost? Would a village in Africa be able to scrape together enough money to buy one? If not, then the financial rules and infrastructure needs to be in place for them to borrow the money to buy it. Handouts from 1st world governments might be able to bypass that shortcut, but what's the likelihood that such programs would be funded long enough- along with all the other aid programs needed for other problems- to get their economy off the ground?In short, by creating rulesets in the those countries to allow banks and other businesses to operate freely and efficiently, the means are created by which they can solve their own environmental problems.

[shiva]

"In short, by creating rulesets in the those countries to allow banks and other businesses to operate freely and efficiently, the means are created by which they can solve their own environmental problems."

Michael, I think that is not wholly correct with respect to the gap; I think that some set of mitigating rules, and/or base-of-pyramid economic growth needs to occur before your simply turn all businesses and banks loose. In many cases throughout the developing world, big development loans accompanied the unleashing of foreign capital. Obviously not in itself a bad thing, except that, historically, the biggest bang for the buck for transnational banks and businesses is massive, centralized projects that have profound adverse effects with respect to community connectivity and the environment, and reinforce the hoarded wealth of the local elites.

I guess what i'm arguing is that a carbon limiting rule for gap investment would result in broader deployment of smaller scale, 21st century technologies that would ultimately do much more good socio-economically and environmentally. smooth the curve of your ecnomic development variables. I don't want to do this with handouts, I want progressive corporations like Grameen Phone and local/regional entrepeneurs to make money off it. Yes this would involve "non-technical requirements," but so does any gap-focused enterprise. I think carbon limits would result in tech deployment that would help incrementally fortify the pyramid's base-- and the contextual rulesets-- resulting in more sustainable, more resilience-building outcomes than if you drop a megadam or energy-export coal plant in the middle of a subsistence ag region.

as Tom pointed out, theres a ton of constructive, profitable, environmentally optimal middle ground to explore between solarpowered ecobliss and the 750MW coal burner, like South Africa's burgeoning 200MW pebble beds or GE's 2MW commercial-scale wind tubines.

Hopefully i'm on target with the point you were trying to make... thanks for the reply.

[Sean Meade]

fwiw, i think the only useful 'carbon limiting' techs in the Gap will be those that are flat-out better and cheaper than the others - only time you get to leapfrog. cell phones are a ton better than landlines, so we get to leapfrog. right now, internal combustion engine and coal is the best we've got. as nukes and hydrogen come on line, we hope for the leapfrog. but i doubt we'll get it on environmental concerns alone. we got to develop/exploit our continent for a couple hundred years before the green kicked in. the Euros even longer. why shouldn't the E Asians?

[shiva]

right-- i'm suggesting making climate safe energy "cheaper" by making carbon emissions more expensive.

I understand your latter point, but I think the Core has too much of a stake in that scenario not playing out, with respect to global climate impacts as well as "normal" pollutants. A huge amount of California's air pollution is already traceable to China coal burning for example. We need to help the gap not do as we did.

One of the aspects of Tom's mantra on locking in China at today's prices that I've interpreted is environmental leadership and cleantech exchange-- helping them improve their environmental regulations and energy tech (e.g. scrubbers for coal plants) as part of that strategic alliance lock-in.

Why shouldn't an air pollution reduction mandate be part of a deal to back off on Taiwan for example? Call me a crazy eco-kook, but 5400 southern Californians die prematurely every year because of air pollution already. That will be exacerbated if China's growth does not get cleaner.