Although wars are often justified under the banners of lofty tenets, they are just as often fought over resources. And as the Associated Press reports today, it’s not unthinkable that as global warming changes the resource status quo, conflicts will erupt between peoples competing for those resources.
A few highlights from the article:
“One of the biggest likely areas of conflict is going to be over water,” said [retired General Charles] Wald, former deputy commander of U.S. European Command. He pointed to the Middle East and Africa.
The military report’s co-author, former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, also pointed to sea-level rise floods as potentially destabilizing South Asia countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Lack of water and food in places already the most volatile will make those regions even more unstable with global warming and “foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” states the 63-page military report, issued by the CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Va.-based national security think tank.
Mother Nature’s potential WMD sort of raises the bar of imminent threat, doesn’t it?
– Ward
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
2050? How about a bit earlier.
What are Golan Heights about?
Wars so have some to do with resources, but because of different views and opinions.
I dont see a “water war” ever happening, who will fight over something that is free and virtually infinite.?
However…a decade ago, who could of predicted that the world as a whole, would be willing to pay $1 for 20 ounces of water…
But still, water is plentiful, and ways of purifing it are only getting better.
besides, no one can even begin to imagine how different the world will be in 43 years.
and (apparently) this general is a douche that has watched Al’s movie one to many times.
salt water is plentiful…fresh water is not; and it is disappearing as the ice caps melt into the oceans.
“I dont see a “water war” ever happening, who will fight over something that is free and virtually infinite.?”
If your tap suddenly stopped flowing, I think you’d realize that clean, potable water is anything but.
Water pumping stations and de-salization plants are big, fat, expensive, and complicated pieces of equipment. And once they get busted, the people who depended on them are out of luck until repairs can be made. Wars might not be started over water per se, but maybe we’d be having an easier time winning hearts and minds if we could bring Iraq’s municipal services back to pre-invasion levels.
It’s good to see that no one is buying this BS. I can’t believe anyone other than the end of the world environmnentalists, accepting this either. Anyone can dream up anything and any scenario, but that doesn’t mean it has validity. It really is not worth debunking.
Anyone that makes a prediction about anything specific for more than a few years into the future will be wrong. Some trends are predictable, specifics are not. Anyone that maps the present onto some imaginary future will also be wrong.
Um – what b said has weight. The fight in for Israel is as much about water access as it is lost territory.
Water and Soil folks – not much oil right there.
And Israel’s plight has always been a microcosm of the bigger picture.
I’d just like to point out that by the timeframe indicated, we’ll probably have nanotube-based desalinization. At that point, water shortages will be limited to mostly those unable (or prevented as a means of war) to get them.
I, for one, am going to stock up on bottled water.
Lets see here, 80% of the world is covered by water, and only 1/100 is fresh water. Now we count on this water for drinking, agriculture, power, recreation, etc. At last count there were approximately 6.8 billion people in the world. Does this math make sence to you? Something has to give.