The nexus of climate change and war – ‘We don’t want to be the generation that catches the final curtain on civilization’

By Randolph T. Holhut, American Reporter Correspondent
11 February 2012 DUMMERSTON, Vermont – There is virtually no doubt that global warming exists. Aside from a few cranks and those heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry, the scientific consensus is that the Earth’s climate is changing, and changing faster than ever before. What happens when the Earth’s climate changes faster than humans can adapt to those changes? The answer to this question is provided in Christian Parenti’s new book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. Parenti, a contributing editor at The Nation, describes what he calls a “catastrophic convergence” of the legacy of Cold War-era militarism, neoliberal economic restructuring and the onset of climate change, and how they combine and express themselves as warfare, crime, repression and state failure. Speaking in Brattleboro, Vt., on 10 August 2011, Parenti said his book is the product of six years of traveling and reporting in war zones and failed states from east Africa to central Asia. He was working what was to be a book on the past decade of war in Afghanistan, but as it turned out, that was where he got the first hint of how climate change was affecting the NATO-led counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban. The worst drought in Afghanistan’s history has coincided with the war and occupation that began in 2001. The Afghan and U.S. governments are trying to prevent farmers from planting opium poppies and plant wheat instead. But it is impossible to grow wheat in a drought, while poppies use one-sixth of the water that wheat requires. The Taliban is supporting the cultivation of poppies. The NATO forces, which are trying win the loyalty of these tribal farmers, is destroying poppy crops. It is easy to see which side the farmers are on. While the drought is not the sole reason for the continuing unrest in Afghanistan, it is but one example of how climate change is contributing to global instability. From the heavily-armed tribes on the Kenya-Uganda border stealing cattle; to the battles over access to water on the India-Pakistan border; to displaced farmers fleeing Mexico who are caught between warring drug cartels and an increasingly militarized U.S. border, the future of our planet looks more and more like an endless global conflict over dwindling resources. Parenti is quick to point out that this is a man-made disaster where “people are killed by bad policies as much as they are being killed by drought or famine.” […]