Climate Change Driving War?

New submitter Stirling Newberry writes "You may have heard of The Great Moderation (PDF), which argues that business cycles have become less volatile over time, and the Green Revolution, a set of initiatives that led to increased global food production. These, it has been argued, have led to a marked decrease in war across the world. But not so fast, says a study in Science. It may well be that periods of war, past and present, can be linked to changes in climate: 'The most direct way in which extreme climate shifts influence human society is through agriculture, Zhang says; a falling supply of crops will drive up the price of gold and cause inflation. Similarly, epidemics can be exacerbated by famine. And when people are miserable, they are likely to become angry with their governments and each other, resulting in war. But golden ages rise out of these dark periods, the team argues. For instance, a 100-year cold period beginning in 1560 caused shortened crop growing seasons. The researchers found a causal linkage with a decline in average human height by nearly an inch during this period, and the century was rife with disease and conflict. But the world began to warm in 1650; when Charles II was crowned king of England in 1660, the coronation sparked the Enlightenment era in Europe.'"

Comments

There is no relevance in between Charles II

[unity100]

and age of enlightenment. First, age of enlightenment doesnt start well into 18th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

second, precursors of age of enlightenment that are recounted in the above article were already there, starting with early pioneers like erasmus, and going into spinoza, long before charles ii and 1660.

please dont make up ahistoric shit to back up loose arguments.

Re:There is no relevance in between Charles II

[Stirling Newberry]

The terms "Enlightenment" and "Age of Reason" are not so precisely demarcated, many scholars use a long age of enlightenment to mean from the 1650s forward, and others divide into two. This is part of the "lumpers/splitters" problem, that some people like small units, others like large ones. The Wikipedia article takes the lumpers point of view, but that isn't universal. However, it is generally believed in history that the Peace of Westphalia and the coming of absolutism and the "age of Reason" are linked, and that while there were precursors to this, in the form of say King James I of England's The True Law of Free Monarchy and the policies in France, that the turbulence of the Thirty Years War was the trigger for a more general change. So why that war happened, as it did, is an important question, if climate was part of that answer –and more broadly, if climate fluctuations show a correlation to political events, then it changes the notion of what historians, economists, sociologists and political scientists need to study and include in their works. Never again will an author be able to wave their hand and dismiss as anecdotal accounts of climate, because now we have better ability to reconstruct. And if climate isn't a factor, then that too is something that needs to be shown, not just assumed.

In terms of climate and history, for a long time there have been observations of linkage between historical periods and climatic events, one of the most famous of these is the period of reduced growing periods known as the "Little Ice Age" and the destabilization of the medieval order on Eurasia. Another more specific one is the relationship between the volcanic eruptions of the 1770's and 1780's and cold snaps that led to poor harvests as a contributing factor to the fall of the ancien regime. Franklin speculated at the time that the eruptions were leading to cold, and Talleyrand famously quipped that "we are all dancing on a volcano," in reference to the problems of the ancien regime in France and poor harvests which were driving inflation in food and social instability.

However, until recently there were not good paleo-climate reconstructions. Paleo-climatology is a fundamentally computational discipline – it is computers and algorythms by which chronologies are constructed and pieced together: from dendrology, that is trees, ice cores, and other "proxies" for climate. The survey linked to is one of the first, but by no means the last. This is important because much of history has been outside of a real test of theories as to why what happened. As computational climatology matures, it provides a challenge to the dominant view in history, economics, and sociology, that internal factors drive history and events, and a way to apply scientific measurements. Since chronology, and dates, are often "floating" – that is, we don't really know what certain dates in the past were, only our best guesses, it means that instead of arguments over texts, we are getting measurements, and ultimately facts, to determine when events occured. If you see a date before about 1300 BC in a history text, assume it is approximate, simply because our understanding of what dates were is based on reconstructions. That is best guesses.

One of the most important examples of how this matters is in the coming of what is now called the "Neo-lithic Revolution." For a long time it was seen as an internally driven event, however, recent discoveries show that "The Younger Dryas" coincided with the explosion of domestication of plants and animals, but also how many of the first domestication events: figs, rye, dogs, and perhaps goats, were not in the present warm and stable climate era, but in the colder but relatively stable Younger Dryas period. Perhaps, and one has to say perhaps, what later became agriculture started not because it was a good deal, but because times were harder, but more consistent, and the peoples around the world started domestication because it was a cushion when hunting and gathering were not e

Carbon Credit Schemes Are

[Kohath]

NY Times:

KICUCULA, Uganda — According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner.

People here remember it quite differently.

“I heard people being beaten, so I ran outside,” said Emmanuel Cyicyima, 33. “The houses were being burnt down.”

Other villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers.

. . .

But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.

If not war, at least oppression.

Re:Carbon Credit Schemes Are

[kanto]

Well obviously this is cause enough to destroy the environment. I really find it disgusting how much human suffering is ok to secure oil production and rights, but if you can link how ever strenuously an incident to environmental protection it's suddenly a policy changer. Surely it's not like the people in 3rd world countries don't get fucked ever which way by corporations legislated to be sociopaths?

Re:Carbon Credit Schemes Are

[kanto]

Spare me the rhetorical propaganda why don't you, Implicit support of fascist dictators?!? when many of them have been put in power by the West and receive military aid? It also just warms the cockles of my hart when some well off Libyan associate parrots stuff most likely learned in a western university, will make a good public official worth bribing to get the ever important permanent temporary troops installed.

I think the idea that DDT in constant use would have worked indefinitely against malaria is a false premise, it's why we keep having to invent new pesticides in the first place. But otoh law of unintended consequences is not something that the people producing mass quantities of pesticides shine in either, well, just look at DDT.

Yes, of course

[Hatta]

As the Earth heats, we can expect to find less arable land. At the same time we're running out of fossil fuels which are required for the haber process to fix nitrogen for fertilizer. With nearly 7 billion people on the planet, something is going to give. There's going to be a great deal of conflict over the few resources we haven't squandered yet.

Re:Yes, of course

[maxume]

You don't need fossil fuels to make ammonia, you can just get some hydrogen out of some water.

Methane is a cheap convenient source for hydrogen, so it is a popular feedstock.

So the problem is still just energy, fossil fuels aren't particularly crucial.

Re:Yes, of course

[a_nonamiss]

GP might mean that there will be less arable land in the United States. That's probably true. Guess we'd all better start learning to speak Canadian, Eh?

Re:Yes, of course

[KeensMustard]

Oh bull poop. Ever looked at a map? Noticed how much land mass is currently useless for growing in Russia, Canada, etc? Warm things up a bit and we will lose some land and gain some.

Maybe you should try looking at a globe rather than a map imaged from a Mercator projection. Then you will see that areas in the high (and low) latitudes are far smaller than you believe.

Secondly you might want to think about how fertile the soil in siberia would be - currently this soil is frozen in permafrost, and covered in pine forest. Neither condition is conducive to soil fertility. If the permafrost melts (releasing it's methane) then Siberia will be an infertile, poisonous swamp.

Anyway, this is the second Warmer story today, this is getting silly. This isn't dkos... or it least it wasn't.

Does this topic make you uncomfortable?

Re:Yes, of course

[riverat1]

The soil on much of that northern land is not really suitable for growing crops and it will take at least decades if not centuries to make it suitable. Good soil is a living thing that takes time to develop.

Re:Yes, of course

[riverat1]

Ask the farmers in the Midwest how all that precipitation last winter/spring helped their crop yields this year.

Re:Yes, of course

[timeOday]

The Russian drought last year, which triggered them to ban grain exports, lead to higher food prices, especially in importer nations such as the middle east. High food prices in large part triggered the Arab Spring, in which a handful of governments were overturned. So, it is arguable whether this premise is even a prediction, or simply a predicted continuation of recent events.

Re:Yes, of course

[Grishnakh]

Noticed how much land mass is currently useless for growing in Russia, Canada, etc?

That's good if you're Canadian or Russian, but if you're, for instance, African, that doesn't help you too much. Much of the population lives much closer to the equator than Canada and Siberia, and a warming earth is not going to be good for them. And I don't think Canada and Russia are going to open their borders for anyone to move there who wants to.

Re:Yes, of course

[Grishnakh]

Actually, it does seem like global warming will be good for some people, such as the Canadians, who will get more arable land, as well as a northwest passage for shipping, which is currently covered in ice. The Russians might do well with it too, plus the Scandinavians.

Most everyone else is going to be screwed, though. Canada is fairly welcoming to some immigrants (if you score enough points on their qualification system, or have a big bundle of cash ($300k)), but they're not going to just open their borders for all the climate refugees of the world. Moreover, a giant portion of the population lives in cities at sea level. A warming earth will cause ice to melt and sea levels to rise, flooding these cities and forcing a mass relocation. Some island countries are even in danger of disappearing from the map.

Re:Yes, of course

[Telvin_3d]

Actually, as far as Canada in concerned at least, we are already farming about as much as can be farmed. There is farming and ranching at least up to 60* latitude, probably further in some places. Gets nice and warm in the summer too. Axial tilt means looooooong summer days. Lots of light, very good growing season. Get far enough north and the sun doesn't set. My uncle has a ranching operation and the long days mean that he can grow as much hay in three months of almost continuous sunshine as some places can grow in five at lower latitudes.

Land not being farmed now is not being farmed because of other reasons. Middle of no-where and can't get to market. Bad geography. Bad soil. Lot of things that global warming won't change.

Re:Yes, of course

[riverat1]

Even if the reservoirs had been empty there would have still been flooding. It may not have been quite as bad but it would have happened.

Regarding crop yields:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/30/us-farming-floods-arkansas-idUSTRE77T02P20110830
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0511/Mississippi-flooding-drowns-crops-and-casinos-What-s-the-economic-toll
http://www.estormwater.com/Flooding-on-the-Farm-article9528

It may not have been as bad as first feared but lots of farmers took it in the shorts this year because of the flooding.

Re:Yes, of course

[NeutronCowboy]

What he is referring to is that Pine forest soil is acidic. Furthermore, pine trees prefer sandy soil - which also doesn't work for growing food stuff.

One species of tree or bush growing in a specific area is often an indication that it will be very difficult to grow anything else in there.

Does this mean we get to shoot polluters?

[blair1q]

And then blame the smog of war?

Re:Climate Wars

[NeutronCowboy]

I think the idea that climate changes in general, and food issues specifically, will lead to war is pretty well accepted. Almost every war ever was started over natural resources (WW 1 being a fairly large exception), and quite a few were started over food resources (part of Hitler's goal in WW2 was to get access to more arable land in Eastern Europe).

What I do find a bit surprising is that strong correlation between variables is deemed a causal link. It's not. A causal link is a mechanism that ties two events together. These are variables that are tied together by some fairly fluffy socioeconomic theories. To some extent, they're not wrong - it's pretty easy to see that if someone's hungry, they're more likely to club their neighbor over the head for some food than if they're not. But I think they're trying a bit hard with their paper.

Re:Random...

[geekoid]

It gives you a sudden urge to play broken games?

Not exactly a new theory ...

[jc42]

For example, the past couple decades of local wars in the Sahel are conventionally attributed to the spreading of the desert. People there have faced the choice of staying home and starving, or moving south, where the land is already at carrying capacity and the people are prepared to defend their barely-livable land from the armed refugees from up north.

Similarly, the Viking excursions are typically explained by the increasing population in Scandinavia (and the first significant adoption of agriculture there) in the 8th and 9th centuries, followed by decades in which the crops mostly failed. Again, the Norse had the choice of staying home and starving, or sailing away and looking for better places to live. But all those places were already inhabited, so it was really a choice of starve at home or fight abroad.

So what's new about this story? Isn't it just a repeat of much of our history? Or at least, it's a repeat of our explanations for much of our history.

Re:Not exactly a new theory ...

[jc42]

Well, I often find it interesting and useful when people point out that the topic being discussed isn't actually new, and other useful discussions can be found if you look for them. I wasn't trying to stop the discussion; I was mostly just reacting to the claim that this is some sort of new thought. Maybe it was new for the writer, but it's hardly new for anyone who's read much history.

This is much of the reason that some people worry so much about climate change. As the "deniers" like to point out, there have been lots of climate changes in the past, and we're still here. Yeah, but when you can find information about the times of change, you also find lots of wars, famines, deaths, etc.

So reading a claim that this is some sort of new correlation that has just been discovered is yet another indication that someone hasn't learned from history, probably from not being aware of the history.

Anyway, go continue the discussion ...

Anything else

[amightywind]

Is there anything that the shameless left claims is not effected by climate change? What a racket!

Re:You keep using that term...

[blair1q]

Why are you measuring from 2000? Why not measure from 1980 to 2000? Oh that's right, because you're cherrypicking your data to suit your conclusion.

http://goldprice.org/charts/history/gold_all_data_o_usd.png

See any similarities there between the 76-80 period and the 00-11 period?

Gold is down 15% in the past month, btw.

If you want to know what's causing the markets to roil, it's the hedgies unwinding their equities to pay margin calls on their gold futures.

Re:Climate Wars

[Black Parrot]

FWIW, both the US military and the US intelligence community have, in official reports, identified climate change as one of the biggest threats to national security that the US will have to deal with this century.

What is going to be bad, IMO, is that the shift in temperature zones is gong to turn some of the agricultural "haves" into "have nots", and vice versa. Some people are going to fight that change - with guns.

On a side note, the latest Scientific American has an article about the discovery of large deposits of rare elements in Afghanistan. My first thought was, "Oh, boy! That's really going to help stop all the fighting."

Re:Climate Wars

[catchblue22]

I think the idea that climate changes in general, and food issues specifically, will lead to war is pretty well accepted.

When I see people talking about climate and its relationship with incidents such as the rise and fall of civilizations or wars specifically, I somewhat agree. However, I believe it is more complicated than this. My problem with such ideas is that they seem to minimize such things as the role of culture in the prosperity of a society. As an analogue, consider the debate about the role of "nature versus nurture" in the lives of children growing to adults. In the past it was argued that parenting was the most important factor in determining a child's success in life, and that children were like blank slates. Others argued that genetics were far more important. I think those who study such things today say that both nature and nurture play a role. A great example I heard was that the genetics are analogous to the "quality of the musical instrument", but that nurture and free will still have an influence in the types of music that can be played.

I think the problem I have with saying that climate controls the fate of civilizations is that it removes our ability to choose, to influence our fate. I refuse to accept that we as humans are simply debris floating helplessly down the river of fate. We have the ability to change things.

Oh?

[DesScorp]

As the Earth heats, we can expect to find less arable land.

That's news to Africans seeing the desert go green around them as it becomes more moist, not less.

Throughout Earth's history, hot = wet, most of the time.

Global warming problem is solvable

[Max_W]

Changing physical state of matter requires a lot of energy. When we dry linen or clothes in an electrical drier, the liquid, water, changes into the gas, steam. Then the steam has to be evacuated from fabric by a fan, then condensed by a freezer again into water.

This process requires a lot of energy. As people on earth become richer, they buy and use electrical driers more an more. We speak about billions usages daily, a geological scale.

In some districts, even entire cities drying clothes or linen outdoors is forbidden. All we need to do is forbid to forbid the outdoor drying to home owners associations, municipal councils, etc.

Outdoor driers may be re-designed to look better esthetically. It is not that difficult especially if they are used and bought more.

Outdoor drying in hot sunny weather is the most efficient solar and wind device. Not possible to make anything more efficient. Besides it not only saves energy, it also actually cools the atmosphere.

So the problem is quite solvable from an engineering point of view, but there is the most difficult obstacle, - the social one.