admin /22 August, 2006
Lowy Institute analysts Alan Dupont & Graeme Pearman outlined a scenario of global warming triggering a catastrophic deep freeze and international friction over resources in their paper "Heating up the planet: climate change and security".
Thermohaline flow threat: The paper cited US theorists Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, who identifed a sudden or abrupt collapse of the Thermohaline Circulation, or that part of it which flows from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic, as the threshold event most likely to endanger international security.
Tipping point for planet: Schwartz and Randall postulated that the warm Gulf Stream could cool or shut down, perhaps irreversibly, creating winters of great severity in the northern hemisphere and triggering catastrophic weather. Rather than a gradual heating of the atmosphere over a century, global warming could thus suddenly push the climate to a decisive tipping point in which the system controlling the planet’s ocean-atmosphere system suddenly flipped to an alternative state.
Long wintry chaos: In the ensuing climatic chaos, food and water shortages would develop quickly. Crops would fail as established rainfall patterns broke down, storms would intensify, average annual temperatures drop by up to five degrees Fahrenheit (about 2.8C) over Northeast Asia and North America and by up to 6F (about 3.3C) in Europe.
Cold winds to blast soil, crops: In this scenario, North America would turn sharply colder and the European hinterland might have a climate more like Siberia. Colder winters would lengthen the time that sea ice is present over the North Atlantic; frigid, dry air blowing across the Eurasian landmass would lead to widespread soil loss and harsh conditions for agriculture.
Asian droughts to vie with deluges: In southern China and northern Europe, mega droughts would extend their grip over the land for at least a decade, while storm surges would make much of Bangladesh unliveable. China would be particularly hard hit because of a combination of unseasonable monsoon deluges, longer, colder winters and hotter summers caused by decreased evaporative cooling.
Breakdown in order: Initially, countries would attempt to deal diplomatically and collegially with food, water and energy shortages and an upsurge of environmental refugees. But as the decade progressed, international order would break down because the scale and speed of climate change overwhelmed even the most wealthy and technologically advanced states.
To starve or make war: An age-old pattern of conflict over food, water, and energy would reemerge but on a global scale. Drawing on the findings of Harvard archaelogist, Steven LeBlanc, Schwartz and Randall observed that ‘humans fight when they outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural environment. Every time there is a choice between starving and raiding, humans raid.’
Tensions over refugees, oil: With these pessimistic assumptions informing their security scenarios, Schwartz and Randall imagined refugees from the Caribbean flooding into the US and Mexico, and struggles over diminishing supplies of oil as demand skyrockets, bringing the US and Chinese navies into confrontation in the Persian Gulf, the Lowy Institute paper said.
Nuclear power, weapons to spread: With fossil fuels unable to meet demand, nuclear power would become the alternative energy of choice, and further nuclear proliferation would become inevitable as energy-deficient countries developed enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. Japan, South Korea, and Germany would develop nuclear weapons, as would Iran, Egypt and North Korea.
Asia to realign over resources: In Asia, energy-hungry Japan, already suffering from coastal flooding and contamination of its water supply, would contemplate seizing Russian oil and gas reserves on nearby Sakhalin Island to power desalination plants and energy-intensive agriculture. Pakistan, India, and China would skirmish at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. North and South Korea would align to create one technically savvy, nuclear-armed entity.
Bunkers for the rich: Resource-rich, wealthy states like the US and Australia would build defensive fortresses in an attempt to quarantine themselves from climatically induced political and social disturbances while strengthening their security alliances against increasingly desperate neighbours whose needs exceeded their carrying capacity — the natural resources, social organisations, and economic networks that support the population.
Shortfalls to fuel aggression: Meanwhile, reflecting an age-old security dilemma, states suffering from famine, pestilence, water and energy shortfalls would strike out with ‘offensive aggression in order to reclaim balance’, thereby jeopardising their neighbour’s security in pursuit of their own. Countries like Indonesia, whose diversity already created conflicts, would have trouble maintaining order.
Reference: "Heating up the planet: climate change and security", by Alan Dupont & Graeme Pearman. Lowy Institute Paper 12. P.74-75. Longueville Media, PO Box 102, Double Bay, New South Wales 2028 Australia, ph: (02) 9362 8441, email: info@longmedia.com.au website: http://www.longmedia.com.au Document can be found at website: http://www.lowyinstitute.org
Erisk Net, 11/8/2006
