Climate Change and War
“Climate change, and the resulting shortage of ecological resources, could be to blame for armed conflicts in the future, according to David Zhang from University of Hong Kong and colleagues.” Zhang’s research found that rises in warfare in eastern China correlated with drops in temperature: “Almost all peaks of warfare and dynastic changes coincided with cold phases.” Zhang’s team theorizes that cold spells reduced agricultural output for the pre-industrial societies of the 1000-1911 era studied, leading to violent conflict for the few remaining resources.
One might assume that given this research, Zhang would be optimistic about the likelihood of peace in a warming future. Maybe even a world peace through increased carbon emissions movement would be in order [/sarcasm]. Such an un-pc conclusion would of course be unacceptable, and the article makes sure to state that:
Looking to the future and applying their findings, Zhang and colleagues suggest shortages of essential resources, such as fresh water, agricultural land, energy sources and minerals may trigger more armed conflicts among human societies.
So despite the fact that the research correlates war with colder periods, and recent temperature trends indicate that average global temperatures are warming, we’re still being warned that we may be in for more misery in the future.
This seems backwards to me. The only actual evidence cited correlated increases in warfare with drops in temperature. The most simplistic extrapolation would assume that this relationship would contiue and predict reduced warfare in a warmer future. Yet Zhang asserts the exact opposite.
The more pessimistic forecast depends on the thesis that scarcer resources lead to more conflict. This thesis really needs to tested directly, because I encounter it often and yet the details often get glossed over. In this case, the forcast ignores the difference between pre-industrial and industrial (to say nothing of post-industrial) soceities and changing population dynamics. Previous population booms may have correlated with bumper harvests due to warmer temperatures which then became unsustainable when resource yields shrank due to cold, leading to war. But current population growth has actually declined as societies have become wealthier.
In order to actually test the resource war thesis, one would need a data set that could one could examine for correlations between the availability of key resources and incidents of warfare.
Of course, all of this could be a simply a poor summary by a journalist. I’ll have to track down the actual article [1] to know. Still, very interesting stuff and an awfully elegant research design. Getting a 911 year dataset with 899 incidents is impressive.
[1] Zhang DD, Zhang J, Lee HF, He Y (2007), “Climate change and war frequency in eastern China over the last millennium”, Human Ecology, Volume 35, Number 4 / August, 2007, Pages 403-414, DOI: 10.1007/s10745-007-9115-8
I posted a summary and discussion of the article here.
Comment by Adrian — August 2, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
Adrian,
Thank you for the summary, but you misrepresented my position. You neatly excised my qualification (”One might assume that given this research, …”) and ignored that this post goes on to discuss that Zhang’s thesis really regards resource-based conflict.
As far as the validity of the resource scarcity theory of conflict, which we both agree is the substance of the article, I have a gestating post that will discuss my thoughts further.
BTW, Soccer and Football has been in my RSS reader for several months now. Can’t say I follow the soccer, but some very useful IR material. Good stuff.
cheers,
W
Comment by Wiggins — August 3, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Thanks for the compliment. As for the resource-war theory, while it makes perfect sense logically, I don’t know of any emperical examination to see whether there is correlation or not.
If you want a copy of the paper I can email it to you in pdf form. I looked for your email on the blog but I couldn’t find it.
Comment by Adrian — August 3, 2007 @ 10:42 am
That’d be great.
opposed.systems.design@gmail.com
Comment by Wiggins — August 3, 2007 @ 10:55 am
The remark that “this seems backwards” is unworthy of a careful thinker, as is the crack about “un-pc.”
It strikes me that your expressed resistance to the theory that resource scarcity leads to conflict is misguided. Here is a data set that demonstrates just such a link. You raise an interesting objection when you note that this data set is from a pre-industrial society, and that maybe correlations found within it don’t apply to industrial society. You would have to explain why this could or should be so, and I cannot imagine a successful explanation. Industrial society has changed some things–notably, we “mine” past solar income in the form of fossil fuels to feed more people–but it hasn’t changed the fundamental facts of nature: people need to eat. Climate change will disrupt agriculture, and not generally for the better. There will be less food–because of global climate change, and as petroleum products become more expensive. (As we rush to turn biomass into liquid fuels, there will be even less edible biomass for humans.) If you can think of convincing counter arguments to this scenario–arguments that take seriously the first and second laws of thermodynamics, which describe some of the key limits within which any society, even industrial society, must operate–I’d like to see them.
Comment by Bode — September 8, 2007 @ 2:29 pm