• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev

Climate change stokes violent reaction

July 31, 2013
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

EMBARGOED until 1800 GMT on Thursday 1 August An exhaustive study of a wide range of conflicts over thousands of years has found that rising temperatures are inevitably linked to an increase in violence. LONDON, 1 August – Stand by for more violence. As planetary temperatures rise, so does the likelihood of murder, rape and domestic violence, as well as civil war, ethnic bloodshed and invasion, the collapse of government and even the collapse of civilisation. Three US scientists report today that they analysed 60 studies by 190 scholars published in 26 journals of 45 different conflicts around the world, and spanning thousands of years of human history, and came to one grim, clear conclusion. With every significant shift in temperature there was an increased risk of social or societal violence, they report in the journal Science. The studies they analysed were drawn from climatology, archaeology, economics, political science and psychology: once they had examined the data and used a common statistical framework to look at the pattern of outcomes, they found increased temperature or extended drought as significant factors. They found spikes of violence as the thermometer soared in India and in Australia; increased assaults in the US and in Tanzania; ethnic violence in Europe and South Asia, land invasions in Brazil, and civil conflict throughout the tropics. Temperatures even played a role in the collapse of the Chinese empire and of Mayan civilisation. The authors specifically looked to see if there could be a link between climate and conflict, within three very different categories. These included personal violence, such as rape, assault, murder and domestic violence; intergroup violence and political instability; and institutional breakdowns such as abrupt changes in government or even the collapse of a civilisation. They found a connection in all three types of conflict.

Climate shapes societies

Conflict, they conclude, responded most consistently to temperature: of 21 studies of modern societies, all 21 showed a positive relationship between higher temperatures and raised levels of violence. A separate research paper in Science warns that global average temperatures could increase by 2°C between 2046 and 2065, and by 4°C between 2081 and 2100. Because a study of contemporary and historic conflict required the researchers to identify common factors in very different cultures in very different latitudes, they also had to settle on some way to make sense of the significance of temperature shifts in very different climates.  They chose a statistical yardstick called a standard deviation: the difference from the normal, or average. One standard deviation, says Marshall Burke, a co-author, of the University of California at Berkeley, would be the equivalent to a warming of a country in Africa of 0.4°C for an entire year; or the warming of a US county by 3°C for a given month. These, he says, are moderate changes, but they have a significant impact on those who have to live with such changes. “We found that a one standard deviation shift towards hotter conditions causes the likelihood of personal violence to rise 4% and intergroup conflict to rise 14%”, he said. “Our results shed new light on how the future climate will shape human societies.” And Edward Miguel, also of Berkeley, said: “We often think of modern society as largely independent of the environment, due to technological advances, but our findings challenge that notion.”

“…we should carefully consider whether our actions today are making our children’s world a more dangerous one…”

Quite how climate links with conflict may differ in each case: in the poorer rural countries, drought and extreme heat affect harvests and therefore food prices in the city markets; in the developed world, crowded cities and hot nights mean more opportunities for sudden flashes of violence between different communities. Circumstances vary, but the connection with temperature remains in all the cases under review. The study was led by Solomon Hsiang at the University of Princeton, who said: “We need to understand why climate changes cause conflict so we can help societies adapt to these events and avoid the violence. At the same time, we should carefully consider whether our actions today are making our children’s world a more dangerous one.” The researchers spell it out carefully in their paper: “Given the large potential changes in precipitation and temperature regimes projected in the coming decades, our findings have important implications for the social impact of anthropogenic climate change in both high income and low income countries.” ●Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University in California and Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution in Washington report that they used a mix of climate models to forecast warming this century. If the emission of greenhouse gases continues according to its present trajectory, they warn in Science, the planet could be 4°C warmer by 2100. All latitudes would be affected, but the highest temperature rises would be over land, and in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere. This would represent change at an unprecedented rate: 10 times faster than at any time in the past 65 million years. “The rapid global warming that occurred some 55 million years ago was as large as these warming projections, but that event occurred over many thousands of years, not a mere century”, said Dr Diffenbaugh. – Climate News Network



in Uncategorized

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Jason Woodhead/Flickr
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay
Petrochemicals & Plastics

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
171
Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons
Severe Storms & Flooding

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
288
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
171
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
147
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
74
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
83
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.5k

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
60
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
80
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
29
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
38
Chris Lim/Wikimedia Commons

China Has 9 Times the Wind, Solar Potential It Needs for Carbon Neutrality

June 24, 2022
54
willenhallwench / Pixabay

PG&E Risks Greenwashing with Definition of ‘Scope 4’ Emissions

June 24, 2022
44
Next Post
Flaring harms the environment and is a waste of money

Flaring lights up North Dakota

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}