Climate Change and Security
When we think about protecting our national security, we generally are talking about protecting our physical property, our lives, our economy (or livelihood), and our way of life (including our political institutions and independence). Anything that threatens one or more of these things can reasonably be declared a threat to our national security.
By this measure, climate change is a threat to the security of the United States and to states around the world.
The news today makes that point pretty clearly.
In this morning’s New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar reports on the work of Pacific island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels. The Carteret Islands northeast of Papua New Guinea “could well be uninhabitable by 2015,” MacFarquhar writes. But the danger is not limited to the Carterets whose inhabitants are torn between staying and finding a more secure place to live.
There could be 200 million of these climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organization for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances. Aside from the South Pacific, low-lying areas likely to be battered first include Bangladesh and nations in the Indian Ocean, where the leader of the Maldives has begun seeking a safe haven for his 300,000 people. Landlocked areas may also be affected; some experts call the Darfur region of Sudan, where nomads battle villagers in a war over shrinking natural resources, the first significant conflict linked to climate change.
I found a compelling Youtube video about the Carteret Islands, here.
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The idea that industrial nations bear some responsibility for climate change might be difficult to hear, but it is also true. But that alone is not enough for us to act. We have to act on climate change, because the Carteret Islands are just one example, one early indicator, of what is likely to happen around the world.
Sadly, climate change is already taking human life.
The Global Humanitarian Forum, led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, reported today that about 300,000 people die each year as a result of climate change-related disasters. Such disasters also account for approximately $125 billion in economic damage each year.
MacFarquhar’s concluded by highlighting the conflict the islanders feel between moving to safer lands or staying on their ever-shrinking shore.
The sentiment among Pacific Islanders suggests that they do not want to abandon their homelands or be absorbed into cultures where indigenous people already struggle for acceptance.
“It is about much more than just finding food and shelter,” said Tarita Holm, an analyst with the Palauan Ministry of Resources and Development. “It is about your identity.”
Identity. If we think for just a moment about the lives that have been lost in the last 100 years over “identity,” it is chilling. Climate change does not just threaten shores, or productive lands, it threatens who people are. That’s a recipe for violence and extremism of all sorts.
