Resource Shock: How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/resource-shock-how-resource-scarcity-and-climate-change-could-produce-global-explosion




Brace yourself. You may not be able to tell yet, but according to global experts and the U.S. intelligence community, the earth is already shifting under you. Whether you know it or not, you’re on a new planet, a resource-shock world of a sort humanity has never before experienced.

Two nightmare scenarios -- a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change -- are already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition, and conflict. Just what this tsunami of disaster will look like may, as yet, be hard to discern, but experts warn of “water wars” over contested river systems, global food riots sparked by soaring prices for life’s basics, mass migrations of climate refugees (with resulting anti-migrant violence), and the breakdown of social order or the collapse of states. At first, such mayhem is likely to arise largely in Africa, Central Asia, and other areas of the underdeveloped South, but in time all regions of the planet will be affected.

To appreciate the power of this encroaching catastrophe, it’s necessary to examine each of the forces that are combining to produce this future cataclysm.

Resource Shortages and Resource Wars

Start with one simple given: the prospect of future scarcities of vital natural resources, including energy, water, land, food, and critical minerals. This in itself would guarantee social unrest, geopolitical friction, and war.

[chervilant]

1. Have you read

"The Tropic of Chaos"? I think you would appreciate that book.

I've been concerned about overpopulation since I read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," more than 45 years ago. (I guess it didn't help that I read Marx at about the same time...)

I think we're witnessing our species' extinction event. Friends tell me that I'm a "gloom and doomer" for holding this position, but I find it fascinating that humans are so smart AND so stupid at one and the same time.

[xchrom]

2. i don't think it's an exaggeration to say many people will die from

climate change.

famine jumps first in my thinking.

[RKP5637]

3. It will likely happen on the present course. Most people do not

look beyond their nose, and most governments are in the same league. And most are too selfish, preoccupied with current gains thereby ignoring the future. ... and, we live in a sea of garbage. I've been concerned about resources and population for decades, but in the big picture the collective ignores it for the most part.

[marmar]

4. k/r