Extended Forecast: Bloodshed

As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars - and even more witches hacked to death with machetes.

Perhaps of greater interest to those who consider themselves above such brutality or who have forgotten Western history, Kristof offers the work of U of Chicago economist Emily Oster, who has matched weather records with the history of European witchcraft trials and found a correlation: colder weather.  And this bears relevance for Americans as well, as we can read in the following paragraph:

In particular, Europe's "little ice age" led to a sharp cooling in the late 1500s, and that corresponds to a renewal in witchcraft trials after a long lull. And there's also micro-evidence: in one area, a brutally cold May in 1626 led outraged peasants to call for punishment of witches thought responsible. Some scholars have also argued that the Salem witch trials occurred after a particularly cold winter and economically difficult period.

As Kristof notes, we may not be able to anticipate all consequences of climate change, but it is more than weather and economics:

There is abundant evidence that economic stress and crop failures - as climate scientists anticipate in poor countries - can lead to violence and upheavals.

The US is of course not the place where climate change risks great threat of increased violence,  In Africa, for example, corn is becoming less viable as a crop in Southern Africa where it is a major food source, and this could lead to catastrophic food shortages with concomitant increases in violence. And in the Sahel, an impoverished area in West Africa south of the Saraha already subject to religious and ethnic strife, Professor Miguel worries that decreased rainfall could push people over the edge, and that the recent drought has, based on his researched, increased by 50% the chance of an African nation slipping into civil war.

Kristof has written extensively on Darfur, and it thusis no surprise to read the following brief paragraph:

Ethnic conflict in Darfur was exacerbated by drought and competition for water, and some experts see it as the first war caused by climate change. That's too simplistic, for the crucial factor was simply the ruthlessness of the Sudanese government, but climate change may well have been a contributing factor.

We are responsible, as are the people in Europe and China.  It is the greenhouse gases from the industrial powerhouses spewing into the atmosphere that causes the climate change that endangers the poor nations in places like Africa and Bangladesh, and which is threatening some island nations with inundation as sea levels rise.  The damage probably already exceeds the aid that we offer, and Professor Miguel urges emergency aid for nations facing serious drought or other economic shock in order to prevent the kinds of violence that while starting in one nation can easily spread to the surrounding region, with consequences to the wider world that might be difficult to imagine.

I fear that too many will be inclined to dismiss the concerns raised in Kristof's column, and that an appeal based on humanitarian principles will be insufficient to draw or keep our attention.  After all, we have known about Darfur for several years, and yet that is swamped by our concern for our role in Iraq, perhaps justifiably, and by other concerns - political, economic and social - that seem more immediate to us.  But we cannot ignore the threat about which Kristof is attempting to inform us.  And I would argue that we can see evidence that major corporate interests are well aware of what is happening:  we have seen increasing efforts by multinations to gain control of water systems, a control that would give them the power to economically strangle entire cities or even nations.  And some of the conflicts between nations are because of those resources that are so necessary to basic human existence.  Some of the conflict in the Middle East has always been related to control of water supplies.  In the area the British called Palestine control of Jordan River waters is crucial to survival.  And conflicts between Turkey and its neighbors might come about not merely because of Turkish desire to prevent an independent Kurdish state and identity, but also over the water of the Euphrates River, which arises in Turkey before passing through both Syria and iraq.  In an area dominated by deserts, a country upstream taking too much of a major water source can have serious consequences for other nations downstream, and if we doubt that, perhaps we should look at how the US use of water in the Colorado River has meant that at times it does not flow completely to the Gulf of California in our southern neighbor Mexico.

Decreased water flow can lead to loss of fish life, and increased salinization of the lower part of a river that flows into an ocean.  Less water can mean decreases in crops.

It is not that climate change is the only cause of the problems.  Population growth is also a factor, as in some areas the number of people already surpasses the carrying capacity of the immediate region.  People cutting down trees for fuel in mountains leads to erosion, and greater flow of rivers downstream to the point that the runoff causes floods:  this has been a problem in Bangladesh exacerbating the problem already caused by typhoons washing in from the Bay of Bengal: much of the population of that nation lives along the banks of the Jamuna-Brahmaputra and Padma-Ganges riverine systems.

Carrying capacity is not just a problem in Bangladesh, or in Africa.  It already exists in the United State.  It is not just how much of the world's greenhouse gases we produce.  IO have mentioned the Colorado River.  Remember that it flows through an area that is basically desert, into which we have seen millions of people move.  San Diego gets water from the River.  We see cities exploding in desert regions, whether Las Vegas or Phoenix (in which the Salt River Basin is often quite dry).  And in the Plains and the Heartland we are drawing down the primary underground water source, the Ogallala Aquifer, and in California the water demands of the part of the state around Los Angeles has led to severe drops in lake levels in the North.  

We are not the only nation destroying the resources we need to survive.  So far we have had enough total resources to shift demand, and enough economic and technical resources to adapt to the changing conditions.  But given our own history of brutality when we had fear of economic conditions, often caused by changes of weather, we should not believe that we can remain immune from trouble as a series of causes begins to jeopardize life as we know it.  We often think of what life would be like were we to lose access to overseas oil.  As disastrous as that might be to contemplate, it pales in comparison were we to find a shortage of water to sustain our economic activity and our basic human needs.  And if climate change continues as it has, and we continue to overuse our water sources, we will begin to find that we are no longer able to grow sufficient food to feed over 300 million people, much less to export enough to gain some financial resources to buy the oil we need to grow food and transport it from the growing areas to the places people need it.  

The crisis is real.  It is far more immediate than we realize.  We exacerbate it in so many ways, by drinking bottled water whose cost per ounce is more than the gas we put in our tanks, by eating out of season fruits and vegetables from the Southern hemisphere transported at the cost of more carbon emissions, by our insistence in having broad expanses of lawns even in environments not suitable to such growth and sustainable only by excessive use of water, by our refusal to make conservation of resources a top priority and to agree to cut back on our emissions of greenhouse gases.

Kristof ends his piece with noting how unjust it is that we will not address our role in global climate change.  His final brief paragraph makes this point clearly:

So let's remember that the stakes with climate change are broader than hotter summers or damaged beach houses. The most dire consequences of our denial and delay may include civil war - and even witch-killings - among the poorest peoples on earth.

It is not just that there will be riots and killings of supposed witches in remote parts of Africa.  When people are afraid they look for scapegoats.  We have already seen that in the US, and far more recently than the events Kristof cites.  After all, we saw attacks on Sikhs and threats to Muslims after 9-11.  We have people who seek to gain advantage, economic or political, by stoking that fear.  How much better might it be to show the leadership of addressing the causes of the uncertainty or worse that provides the environment in which that fear can be stoked.

There is no crisis more important than addressing the climate environmental threats.  We are accelerating towards a point of irreversible damage.  The changes are not linear, not even geometric in their impact:  it is at least exponential, with feedback loops that many Americans simply do not grasp.

I can only hope that a column like that Kristof has written can focus our attention long enough for someone to be able to explain how it is not only a moral issue.  It is a moral issue what damages our actions - or inactions given our unwillingness to sign on to a global commitment to lower our greenhouse gas emissions - do to others.  But what we do will also impact us, and that impact is coming much more quickly and with much greater impact than many Americans realize.

Peace.

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