Monday, December 13, 2010

"Natural Security" in a world of scarcity

The US military is starting to plan for potential future conflicts based on scarcity of natural resources such as water, arable land, mineral resources, and environmental degradation due to climate change. Policy makers have coined the term "natural security", and warn that these future scarcities can represent "triggers for conflict".

One would assume that the military would not have an ideological stance for or against acknowledging climate change, because there's no inherent reason to do so, if their mission is simply to protect their country's security interests. So it's interesting to watch the military essentially taking climate change into account in their plans, while some civilian politicians can still win votes by refusing to even consider the possibility that human activity can have global impact on the physical world that we live in.

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