Posted on 01/24/2007 11:58:57 AM PST by Toddsterpatriot
LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming could exacerbate the world's rich-poor divide and help to radicalize populations and fan terrorism in the countries worst affected, security and climate experts said on Wednesday.
"We have to reckon with the human propensity for violence," Sir Crispin Tickell, Britain's former ambassador to the United Nations, told a London conference on "Climate Change: the Global Security Impact."
"Violence within and between communities and between nation states, we must accept, could possibly increase, because the precedents are all around."
He cited Rwanda and Sudan's Darfur region as two examples where drought and overpopulation, relative to scarce resources, had helped to fuel deadly conflicts.
Experts at the conference hosted by the Royal United Services Institute said it was likely that global warming would create huge flows of refugees as people tried to escape areas swamped by rising sea levels or rendered uninhabitable by desertification.
Tickell said terrorists were likely to seek to exploit the tensions created.
"Those who are short of food, those who are short of water, those who can't move to countries where it looks as if everything is marvelous are going to be people who are going to adopt desperate measures to try and make their point."
BIN LADEN ON CLIMATE CHANGE
John Mitchell, chief scientist at Britain's Met Office, noted al Qaeda had already listed environmental damage among its litany of grievances against the United States.
"You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries," al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden wrote in a 2002 "letter to the American people."
Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University, said any attempt by countries to build fortress walls to keep out climate change refugees -- what he called the "barbarians at the gate" mentality -- was doomed to fail.
"If you just take the example of Bangladesh, if 60 million of 140 million people could not survive in Bangladesh yet they were kept there, you would have A) gigantic human suffering and B) progressive very deep radicalization -- very, very angry people -- and that is not in anybody's security interest."
Bangladesh, with a 580 km (360 mile) coastline on the Bay of Bengal, is acutely vulnerable to rising sea levels, cyclones and droughts.
Climate scientist Mitchell said the Mediterranean and Middle East were likely to receive less rainfall as a consequence of climate change, adding to existing tensions over water.
John Ashton, special representative for climate change at Britain's Foreign Office, voiced concern that this could further destabilize a region already beset by conflict.
"Given the volatile nature of that region, given the global consequences of that volatility, yes I'm hugely worried by that," he told Reuters.
Tooth decay? Global warming.
The list is endless..... and absurd.
I wonder if there's a link between global warming and Hollywood's inability to think up a good movie for the last couple of years.
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Coincidentally, Ishtar and Operation Dumbo Drop have both been linked to carbon based fuels.
Ah...a fellow owner of "Super Happy Funball?"
Global warming is being shipped to our troops in Iraq and is being dropped on Somalia.
LOL The global warming con picks up speed! LOL
This global warming is amazing! Is there anything it can't do? Too much rain? Global warming! Drought? Global warming! Too much snow? Global warming! No snow? Global warming!War? Global warming. Pestilence? Global warming. Natural disasters? Global warming. Global warming?
And just think, only a half dozen years ago we still had serious scientists publishing studies such as this one:
Warning, PDF file: http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/13/c013p149.pdf
I forecast that the coming Ice Age will cause incredible conflicts as Europe, Russia, and Canada dissappear under the glaciers.
I know every time I hear about it, it makes me want to strangle the nearest liberal!
You put it into "Humor" category, but the article is serious. It's a Reuters article in the Yahoo News section.
I do agree that it belongs into a joke category.
What it shows is that Al Qaeda is also waging a propaganda war and the media and Democrats are his willing useful idiots.
"John Mitchell, chief scientist at Britain's Met Office, noted al Qaeda had already listed environmental damage among its litany of grievances against the United States.
"You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and industries," al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden wrote in a 2002 "letter to the American people."
Since global warming is caused by the sun, and thus there's nothing we can do about it, we'll just have to nuke the Islamofacists. A tough decision to make? Sure it is, but it ain't easy being green.
This warming is really messing with my under arm deodorant
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