Among all the other, perhaps more obvious, results of climate change is the prediction that it will lead to more global violence. Even this article from LiveScience listing Top Ten Surprising Effects of Climate Change doesn't think of it.
The scientists say that with the current projected levels of climate change the world is likely to become a more violent place.
They estimate that a 2C (3.6F) rise in global temperature could see personal crimes increase by about 15%, and group conflicts rise by more than 50% in some regions.
"What they have found is entirely plausible... For example, we already know that hotter and drier weather causes an increase in urban violence. Likewise, during cooler and wetter weather people tend to stay indoors, and the threat diminishes."
Group conficts - rebellion - is perhaps more worrisome even than the possibility of more individual crime.
The new study, by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University in the U.S., could have critical implications for understanding the impact future climate change could have on human societies, as many global climate models project global temperature increases of at least 2C over the next half century.
This study
takes a new approach to looking at the possibility of increased violence resulting from climate change.
Although there has been a virtual explosion in the number of scientific studies looking at how climatic impacts shape human conflict and violence, especially in in recent years, the research stems from disparate research fields ranging from climatology, archaeology and economics to political science and psychology.
By amassing more data than any previous study, the researchers were able to show that the Earth’s climate plays a more influential role in human affairs than previously thought.
The study, published in the journal Science, found increased drought or higher than average annual temperature can trigger conflict.
Examples include spikes in domestic violence in India and Australia, increased assaults and murders in the United States and Tanzania, ethnic violence in Europe and South Asia, land invasions in Brazil, police using force in Holland, civil conflicts throughout the tropics, and even the collapse of Mayan and Chinese Empires.
We collected 60 existing studies containing 45 different data sets and we re-analysed their data and findings using a common statistical framework. The results were striking.’
A central contribution of the new study was to develop a method for comparing results around the world, because the nature of climatic events differs across locations.
The new approach was to convert climate changes into location specific units known to statisticians as standard deviations.
Study co-author Marshall Burke, a doctoral candidate at Berkeley’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, said: ‘We found that a one standard deviation shift towards hotter conditions causes the likelihood of personal violence to rise four per cent and intergroup conflict to rise 14 per cent.
The Pentagon for example has already noted the
threat to national security that climate change could pose:
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Global warming is turning up the heat on national security, according to the Pentagon. Factors that military strategists now must consider include global food and water scarcity. These can lead to populations migrating, with all the potential conflicts that could create.
Perhaps this study confirming the possibility will add some 'fuel to the fire' and direct attention where it's needed, rather than misdirecting SWAT resources
to kill a threatening baby deer, for instance.
Of course there are skeptics:
Commenting on the latest research, [Dr. Halvarg Buhaug] said: "I disagree with the sweeping conclusion (the authors) draw and believe that their strong statement about a general causal link between climate and conflict is unwarranted by the empirical analysis that they provide.
who specifically felt the need to point out that the civil war in Africa is not a result of climate change.
But when former Republican administrators of the EPA pen a NYT Op-Ed "Making A Case for Republican Climate Action", you know the last line of defense is about to fall.
Rather than argue against [President Obama's] proposals, our leaders in Congress should endorse them and start the overdue debate about what bigger steps are needed and how to achieve them — domestically and internationally.
As administrators of the E.P.A under Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush, we held fast to common-sense conservative principles — protecting the health of the American people, working with the best technology available and trusting in the innovation of American business and in the market to find the best solutions for the least cost.
The solutions we supported worked, although more must be done. Our rivers no longer burn, and their health continues to improve. The United States led the world when nations came together to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. Acid rain diminishes each year, thanks to a pioneering, market-based emissions-trading system adopted under the first President Bush in 1990. And despite critics’ warnings, our economy has continued to grow.
Climate change puts all our progress and our successes at risk. If we could articulate one framework for successful governance, perhaps it should be this: When confronted by a problem, deal with it. Look at the facts, cut through the extraneous, devise a workable solution and get it done.
Of course these Republicans are from the Stone Age, when they weren't afraid to make sense, but the deniers are finding fewer and fewer like minded people in their camp.