
Pentagon Fears Confirmed: Climate Change Leads to War, Refugees - gregcrv
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-23/pentagon-fears-confirmed-climate-change-leads-to-war-refugees
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BtdTom
7.5+ billion people and counting, some of which enjoy the highest standard of
living our species has ever known. Those that don't enjoy that standard of
living want it, drawing down from a pool of finite resources.

Now throw in the ramifications of climate change like drinking water
shortages, food and resource scarcity, and migrations from coastal cities -
the opportunity for conflict will only rise amongst people and nations.

My concern is that this can lead to large scale nuclear war. Yes I'm aware of
MAD, but that doesn't protect us from everything. Look at Vasili Arkhipov,
Stanislav Petrov, Boris Yeltsin and the Norwegian Rocket Incident. They are
just a small number of publicly known incidents where large scale nuclear war
was almost triggered due to computer glitches and/or miscommunication. The
proliferation of nuclear weapons adds additional challenges in maintaining the
peace and we must also deal with existing nuclear actors experiencing wide
swings in political leadership - like what has happened with the US
presidency.

We live in interesting times.

~~~
kiba
It's not the resources that's the limiting factor, it's the _side effect_ from
our consumption

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luckylion
It focuses on the middle east, where the US (& allies) / NATO have been the
driving forces behind most of the recent "conflicts" that led to forced
migrations (Iraq, Libya, Syria), and then says "climate change had a
significant impact"? Do generals at the Pentagon get too war-happy when it's
too warm on average in any given year? Or is it that plunging Libya and Syria
into civil war and leaving Iraq close to it wouldn't have mattered as much if
it wasn't for that sea level rise?

~~~
josefresco
"The ongoing Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011, has drawn attention
from both the scientific community and the media to the question of how
climatic conditions can contribute to political unrest and civil war. Recent
studies of the Syrian uprising have shown that growing water scarcity and
frequent droughts, coupled with poor water management, led to multiyear crop
failures, economic deterioration and consequently mass migration of rural
families to urban areas (Gleick, 2014; Kelley et al., 2015). Rapid growing
population, overcrowding, unemployment and increased inequality put pressure
on urban centers and finally contributed to the breakout of political unrest"

That's the introduction paragraph. "Blaming the US" for all turmoil in the
Middle East is far too simplistic.

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iguy
I don't doubt that you can find something statistically significant (once you
control for everything else) but every time this comes up, the relative sizes
of things seem vastly under-emphasized.

If 5% less rain does bad things for stability, and what surely matters is food
per mouth, then what's 4x the population doing?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+syria](https://www.google.com/search?q=population+of+syria)

~~~
gowld
5% rain doesn't mean 5% less crops. It's a nonlinear relationship that could
mean 1% less crops or 90% less crops.

~~~
iguy
Absolutely, and I pulled 5% out of thin air, too.

Here's a graph with the famous Arab spring 2011 drought... about 10%, for one
year. You can debate how much of that you wish to attribute to what cause. But
note that this is also the population growth _since 2011_ alone.

[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.PRD.CREL.MT?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.PRD.CREL.MT?locations=EG)

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_bxg1
My favorite thing is when Republicans - so supportive of the military and
focused on practical matters of safety and defense - are the ones continuing
to deny climate change. Even though the military is publishing statements and
studies saying "no, actually this is a thing we're very worried about and
actively taking steps to prepare for".

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mfoy_
Support our troops! (Unless they have ideas which threaten our world view...)

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rrggrr
Click bait. The article is clear... "political conditions play an outsize
role. If it’s too authoritarian or too democratic the results are different."

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clomond
Not explicitly mentioned: The research they reference links droughts in the
middle east during 2009-2012 to the migration and refugee situation which has
played out in last decade from the Arab Spring.[1]

The casual factor that I don't see talked about much: increased local food
prices[2] caused by droughts, which in my opinion very much provided the
kindling of the "Arab Spring", whose consequences are still very much being
played out today.

Related aside: When learning about ancient Rome, it stuck with me that the
emperors and ruling elite were acutely aware of the importance of providing
sufficient "bread and circuses" with the goal of quelling revolution and
uprising. When the political situation is not popular in the first place,
revolutions are often sparked when food and basic necessities suddenly become
difficult to acquire. This has been true since antiquity. [3]

When looking at the impact of climate change, I am very concerned about what
the impact of a small number of poorly placed natural disasters could do to
the world's food supply and prices. Much of the world's food production is
concentrated in a small number of breadbaskets, and global commodity markets
can be very sensitive to relatively small changes in supply. These
breadbaskets are often close together, represent only a small amount of the
world's land area and when conditions are good are highly productive.[4]

I'm sure the security agencies of the world are aware of this and are deeply
concerned about this, but unfortunately I can only see our global situation
getting worse before it gets better. At some point we need to realize this as
a serious, shared issue that ignores borders.

[1] [https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190123-climate-stress-
dr...](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190123-climate-stress-drove-wave-
of-arab-spring-refugees/) [2]
[https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-change-
the-a...](https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-change-the-arab-
spring-and-food-prices/) [3]
[http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/plebians.html](http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/plebians.html)
[4]
[https://myweb.rollins.edu/jsiry/agrcultint.jpg](https://myweb.rollins.edu/jsiry/agrcultint.jpg)

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jressey
Every 80s and 90s post-apocalyptic movie taught me this.

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happy_man
I would rather blame overpopulation than climate change for the upcoming wars
and refugee waves

~~~
chillwaves
The problem isn't "overpopulation" it is resource consumption.

How can it be too many people when a person in one country uses 20x as many
resources as a person in another?

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NeedMoreTea
It's both. Unless we plan to stop, by force if necessary, the rest achieving a
developed life.

If 1m have profligate Western lifestyle, the planet and climate would cope
just fine.

If 7bn desire and are advertised at to desire a profligate Western lifestyle,
then the climate is going to break long before all get there.

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czbond
Does the Pentagon "fear this", or more likely "yay this"?

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thenextguy
loving this new Civilization 6 expansion, cool mechanics

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JohnJamesRambo
What if this is the insidious reason those in power refuse to address climate
change? They know they can make money off of the chaos and war.

~~~
coldtea
Never underestimate the profits of established industries from continuing
business as usual...

Climate change is not just some "use electric cars" thing, it's also "change
whole industries", "stop producing/selling as much crap" thing, and that flies
in the face of constant magnification of everything...

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edoo
It is a pesky little fact that all the climate models have thus far been wrong
and there is still no scientific proof that CO2 drives temperatures.

The best research on the table at the moment shows we may be facing a super
maunder minimum and possible mini ice age. This research will pan out or not
in the next 2-5 years as it is actually falsifiable.

No falsifiable claim = no science

~~~
vertexFarm
Your foolish fringe-science delusions and intellectual arrogance are going to
drive your descendants to despair and death. But I have no doubt you'll go to
your grave unconvinced no matter what the evidence points to, blissfully
leaving the outcome of your decisions to future generations. It's ironic that
you mention falsifiable claims, since literally no amount of overwhelming
evidence can ever convince deniers that their claims are false.

Climate models are not "wrong" or "right," they are models based on finite
variables which resemble reality within an expected margin of error. Thus they
will always have slight but expected variance from actual measurements in the
future. Science doesn't reveal absolute truth, it gets us fractionally closer
to absolute truth. Right now 97% of scientists have reached a consensus that
even based on the most conservative extremes of the margin of error of our
climate models that anthropogenic climate change is real and is marching
towards catastrophe. That's a higher degree of certainty than plenty of other
scientific concepts that we have put into practice. You are claiming to have
better knowledge than the utterly overwhelming majority of evidence and expert
observation. Is it because you are miraculously the smartest person on earth,
or is it because you are a deluded crank? It's pretty obvious which it is to
everyone but yourself and other conspiracy peddlers.

~~~
edoo
Ad hominem attacks are the sign you have left logic at the wayside and are
running on emotion. It is often a sign that your belief, true or not, has been
reinforced with false logic, as when confronted with true logic you are unable
to appropriately respond. Don't worry, we all get better with practice.

~~~
chillwaves
Falacy Falacy. It's not nice that the meanie head called you names, but where
is your actual citation? Where are actual studies to back up your claims?

You just repeat yourself here, as elsewhere, that somehow an "ad hominem" by
your opponite supports your view? That's not how this works and is in fact,
ironically, an ad hominem attack.

