Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/09/2010 10:34:06 PM PDT by neverdem
New research challenges idea that global warming will drive civil unrest.
The idea that climate change might be a trigger for social disorder, population migration and conflict has an impressive pedigree. The link was mooted in a 2003 report for the Pentagon on the national-security implications of climate change; by the Stern review on the economics of climate change, prepared for the UK government in 2006; and in the United Nations' post-conflict environmental assessment of Sudan in 2007, which suggested that climate change was an aggravating factor in the Darfur conflict.
But is there real proof of a link between climate change and civil war?
No, says Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist with the Peace Research Institute Oslo. In research published this week1, he finds almost no correlation between climate-change indicators, such as temperature and rainfall variability, and the frequency of civil wars over the past 50 years in sub-Saharan Africa — arguably the part of the world that is socially and environmentally most vulnerable to climate change. "The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental," says Buhaug.
The analysis challenges a study published last year by Marshall Burke, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues, who reported a strong historical relationship between temperature and the incidence of civil war2. They found that the likelihood of armed conflict across the continent rose by some 50% in unusually warm years between 1981 and 2002.
Neither Burke nor Buhaug is giving any ground; each challenges the other's definition of 'civil war' and choice of climate data sets...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Where there’s a will there is a data set.
There lies, damned lies and statistics.
Any fool with a calculator and a PhD can torture the statistics to support any theory that will get him a grant.
/johnny
James J. Lee tried, and then, he died.
Global Warming on Free Republic
Very Good....now surely politicians can understand a social study treatise.
Deutsche Bank — A Wunch of Bankers ( Carbon credits: Just another excuse to "print money" )
[Climate] War, what is it good for?
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Climate Change Not Linked To African Wars
Excerpts from: Quirin Schiermeier, Nature News, 6 September 2010
In his popular 2008 book Climate Wars, the US journalist and military historian Gwynne Dyer laid out a daunting scenario. Climate change would put growing pressure on fresh water and food over the coming century, he wrote, triggering social disorder, mass migration and violent conflict.
But is there real proof of a link between climate change and civil war — particularly in crisis-ridden parts of Africa — as many have claimed?
No, says Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist with the Peace Research Institute Oslo in Norway. In research published today [this week] in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he finds virtually no correlation between climate-change indicators such as temperature and rainfall variability and the frequency of civil wars over the past 50 years in sub-Saharan Africa — arguably the part of the world that is socially and environmentally most vulnerable to climate change. “The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental,” says Buhaug.
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David says:
Another study came out last year in Nature debunking the notion that nations could go to war over water (“Do nations go to war over water?”, Nature 458, March19, 2009, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7236/full/458282a.html). It’s funny how they can come up with a causal link between war and climat, just because war happened while temperature was rising.
So what is their excuse going to be when the earth slowly goes into a extended cold freeze.
New research challenges idea that global warming will drive civil unrest.The haves vs have-nots has never driven civil unrest. Religion has never driven civil unrest. The only thing that has driven civil unrest is political action by small, homogeneous cadres encouraging the somewhat larger and largely anonymous criminal elements of societies to act simultaneously. Thanks Ernest and neverdem.
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