From Science Magazine, “Quantifying the Influence of Climate Change on Human Conflict.” Hsiang, Bruke, and Miguel conducted a study of studies and conclude by finding a “strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all major regions of the world.”
I decided to read the study, available here: (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3011470/Publications/Science-2013-Hsiang-science.1235367.pdf). Much of it is intuitive and consistent with previous reports. This makes good sense, of course, since it is a study of studies.
Of greatest interest to me, (beyond the mind-numbing but beautiful graphs the authors include), the authors survey a number of plausible mechanisms by which the link from climate change to conflict may occur. They name factors familiar to those in political science who study conflict trends, including economic conditions, labor markets, decreased state capacity, increases in food prices, increased inequality of resources, climate-induced migration and urbanization. They also name as possible contributors changes in “the logistics of human conflict” (citing road quality deterioration). They suggest that “climate anomalies might result in conflict because they can make cognition and attribution more difficult or error-prone, or they may affect aggression through some physiological mechanism. For instance, climatic events may alter individuals’ ability to reason and correctly interpret events.”
Just as virtually all social science papers conclude, “more research is needed,” so too does this one. And even from the passage I quoted above, that need is plain. I am convinced that climate change will exacerbate at least some forms of conflict, in at least some contexts. At the same time, I do not yet think we know enough about the mechanisms by which climate effects may mask or amplify, simplify or broaden, localize or globalize future human conflicts. And that means we are still far from understanding well enough what helpful interventions, systems tweaks, preventive measures, and the like might look like.
But without question, an important set of inquiries.
MM
And of course climate change itself is a source of significant conflict!
I think it’s a fascinating study. It reminds me of a time when I was training to become a systems analyst. I couldn’t figure out a particular coding problem. So I asked one of the senior analysts and he gave me a vague answer (meant to be Socratic, I think) and I was seized with the desire to rip his head off. I’m not typically angry or violent so I was surprised by this–then I realized that it was hot in the office. Apparently the air conditioner had stopped working, and I hadn’t noticed, and I had just been getting angrier and angrier and hotter and hotter working on that code. Anyway, as it warms up, I would imagine we might see all kinds of new conflicts at various levels.