Climatic Deviations Lead to Conflict
Scholarships associating environmental stress to conflicts begun to emerge in the 1980s (Myers 1986, Mathews 1989, Bekure 1989, Christiansson and Tobisson 1989, Ornas 1989, Prah 1989, Mascarenhas 1989). One study considered that watersheds, croplands, climate, and other factors that seldom figure in the minds of political leaders rank alongside military approaches as crucial to a nation 's security (Myers 1986). Another postulated that environmental strains that transcend national borders are already starting to break down the sacred boundaries of national sovereignty (Mathews 1989). Five years later, a groundbreaking study emerged drawing a connection between environmental stress and conflict (Homer-Dixon …show more content…
2009). The researchers revealed that warmer years increase the likelihood of war. Projection of the results with future temperature trends suggests almost 54% increase in armed conflict incidence by 2030. The same projection would add almost 400,000 climate-related battle deaths if future wars are as lethal as current wars (p.20670). Another (Hendrix & Salehyan, 2012) identified the speculated relationship. Using Social Conflict in Africa (SCAD) data, and deepening conflict classification to include all kinds of social conflicts (protests, riots, strikes, inter-communal conflict, government violence against civilians) the authors discovered that deviations from normal rainfall patterns have a substantial impact on small and large-scale conflicts. Rainfall correlates with civil war and insurgency (p. 45). Another used rainfall variability to explore the marginal influence of small-scale conflict in Kenya (Raleigh and Kniveton 2012). Its findings show that small conflicts surge through the periods of extreme rainfall variation, irrespective of the sign of the rainfall change. These conflicts increase during the dry and wet seasons. It is difficult to identify the causal mechanism as the directional effect of climate variability goes both …show more content…
One research (Salehyan 2008, C. Raleigh 2010) made this argument effectively that say we should be cautious about the deterministic links between climate change and conflict. Instead of taking a deterministic approach, we should instead view the effect of climate change on conflict as something contingent upon the interplay of social and political determinants. As the author argue; “the overly structured logic linking climate change to armed conflict ignores human agency, ingenuity, the potential for technological innovations, and the vital role of political institutions in managing conflict” (Salehyan 2008, 317). Ignoring the role of human agency and institutions in containing and managing these kinds of conflicts will lead research on climate-conflict nexus to produce incorrect estimates and wrong policy prescriptions (ibid). This paper argues that gathering disaggregated data on resource management institutions, effective security forces, and an independent judiciary to deal with environmental-related problems is important for moving climate research forward (p.321). To prevent a possibility of reverse causality, the environmental
Scholarships associating environmental stress to conflicts begun to emerge in the 1980s (Myers 1986, Mathews 1989, Bekure 1989, Christiansson and Tobisson 1989, Ornas 1989, Prah 1989, Mascarenhas 1989). One study considered that watersheds, croplands, climate, and other factors that seldom figure in the minds of political leaders rank alongside military approaches as crucial to a nation 's security (Myers 1986). Another postulated that environmental strains that transcend national borders are already starting to break down the sacred boundaries of national sovereignty (Mathews 1989). Five years later, a groundbreaking study emerged drawing a connection between environmental stress and conflict (Homer-Dixon …show more content…
2009). The researchers revealed that warmer years increase the likelihood of war. Projection of the results with future temperature trends suggests almost 54% increase in armed conflict incidence by 2030. The same projection would add almost 400,000 climate-related battle deaths if future wars are as lethal as current wars (p.20670). Another (Hendrix & Salehyan, 2012) identified the speculated relationship. Using Social Conflict in Africa (SCAD) data, and deepening conflict classification to include all kinds of social conflicts (protests, riots, strikes, inter-communal conflict, government violence against civilians) the authors discovered that deviations from normal rainfall patterns have a substantial impact on small and large-scale conflicts. Rainfall correlates with civil war and insurgency (p. 45). Another used rainfall variability to explore the marginal influence of small-scale conflict in Kenya (Raleigh and Kniveton 2012). Its findings show that small conflicts surge through the periods of extreme rainfall variation, irrespective of the sign of the rainfall change. These conflicts increase during the dry and wet seasons. It is difficult to identify the causal mechanism as the directional effect of climate variability goes both …show more content…
One research (Salehyan 2008, C. Raleigh 2010) made this argument effectively that say we should be cautious about the deterministic links between climate change and conflict. Instead of taking a deterministic approach, we should instead view the effect of climate change on conflict as something contingent upon the interplay of social and political determinants. As the author argue; “the overly structured logic linking climate change to armed conflict ignores human agency, ingenuity, the potential for technological innovations, and the vital role of political institutions in managing conflict” (Salehyan 2008, 317). Ignoring the role of human agency and institutions in containing and managing these kinds of conflicts will lead research on climate-conflict nexus to produce incorrect estimates and wrong policy prescriptions (ibid). This paper argues that gathering disaggregated data on resource management institutions, effective security forces, and an independent judiciary to deal with environmental-related problems is important for moving climate research forward (p.321). To prevent a possibility of reverse causality, the environmental