climate and conflict

There was a similar piece on NPR this afternoon, that I caught a bit of.

Icarus

 

People migrated to the new world because of the mini ice age.
I would not lose any sleep over this stuff.

SCH-I535 ? 2

 

Makes sense. As resources get scarce, conflict goes up.
Resources will get more scarce if the temperature goes up, or down by a lot (relatively speaking).
Little ice age,temps were down a degree or two, currently we are climbing that high and will likely to continue to cause resources to become less available. Combine that with the stress on the environment to support higher and higher populations and it could be very bad if we don't plan accordingly.

 

I'm not convinced cause and effect are properly untangled here. Couple of problems I have;

1) Planned violence such as Germany's WWII invasion of Russia or Afghan violence varying with the planting season vary greatly with the temperature and have nothing to do with climate change. Just realize that a whole lot of planned violence has to do with scheduling, not initiation.....and few schedules are targeted during the coldest weather.

2) The comparison criteria of what constitutes a "climate change" is somewhat suspect. Climate change takes decades. Societies change dramatically in decades. To get less change in the society, the time windows of comparison must be very close....more like variations in the weather than "climate change". Be vary aware of how the study is really of temperature correlations and somehow climate change enters the discussion.

3) Worldwide, violence is on a downswing, but temperatures are warming. What gives?

4) Extracting correlations from statistics is straightforward. Extracting "meaning" or "causation" has nothing to do with statistics. Notice how that last bait and switch slides into the results, even with all the standard caveats about statistical discipline not withstanding.

 

"Let them eat cake." Why does that phrase survive? I taught my kids why. They got it. Lot of crop failures in France at the time. A hungry peasantry is an angry peasantry. So the thesis is plausible, at the group level, if the climate events correlate with threat of starvation. So it's a 3rd world thing. Interpersonal? Tough to say. I've heard it said that hot summers increase violence, but maybe that's from the era before air conditioning. Whether the methods of this particular study are adequate or not, I wouldn't judge without having read it in its entirety, and thought about it at length.

Knowing nothing about this, but being familiar with the methods of epidemiology, just a cursory look at some studies suggests this is a) a very old idea, and b) really plausible. Here's a nice readable study. The conclusion is that summer heat = violence shows up in so many contexts that it's probably cause and effect. Interesting that it's only crimes against people, not against property.
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2000-2004/01A.pdf

 

The theory is contradictory...I thought petroleum was the source of all conflict

 

When I looked to see what caused starvation in Africa, I was rather shocked to find in every case I looked at (e.g. Somalia) the starvation did not lead to violence, but the exact opposite. Violence led to starvation. Specifically, starving specific populations was an established technique used by various warlords to takeover targeted areas. Most aid, like from the Red Cross intended for refugee camps, were attacked viciously to destroy the aid and maintain the starvation. That is where studies like the one quoted can be very misleading especially since there will be a very high correlation between violence and starvation. That result should and will show up in the statistics. Unfortunately, the natural thought is that starvation led to the violence, just like I mistakenly thought. Examining the specifics will reveal a very different situation.

 

Because China has a long written history, there have been several studies of climate (food supply, really) and dynastic change. Fascinating but hard to connect with the modern, hi tech, fossil fuel driven world.

Are we more bullet proof because of technology, or more sensitive because of large scale interconnections? It has been argued both ways.

If direct evidence from thermometers, continental glaciers, and biological migrations do not convince that climate change is a thing, then I doubt that the sociology of conflict will tip the scales. They are free to give it a shot though.