Climate Change: Essay Sample

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In the article "On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict" by Thomas Homer-Dixon (1991), the article focuses on how environmental change affects conflict, rather than security, using various theories such as, frustration-aggression theories, domestic structural theories, relative deprivation theories, group identity theories, and general structural theories. The article focuses on acute national and international conflict. The author defines acute conflict as one involving a substantial probability of violence.

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In the second article titled "Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict" by Jon Barnett and Neil Adger, the authors use conflict theory to examine the link between climate change, human security, and violent conflict. However, both articles agree that the threat posed by climate change to human security is both real and immediate across the whole world.

What the Different Theoretical Approaches Reveal or Conceal

As highlighted, both articles use the conflict theory in examining the link between climate change and conflict in the society. However, the difference is to be found in the scope of the two articles. The article by Homer-Dixon is much more focused on the effects of climate change on acute national and international conflict while that by Barnett and Adger takes a broader focus by studying the impact of climate change and human security (Barnett & Adger, 2007).

The result is that Barnett and Adger's article covers a wide scope of the impact of climate change on the security of the world including economic and political security of the entire world. The reader is meant to feel that climate change affects the whole world and there is no other way that can save the planet unless the international community comes together and addresses the issue together.

Due to the detailed nature of Homer-Dixon's article and the focus on violent conflict, the reader feels a sense of urgency because everyone is afraid of violent conflict (Homer-Dixon, 1991). Moreover, due to the specific nature of the case studies used as examples, there is the overwhelming feeling that climate change has had a greater negative effect on the developing economies than the industrialized nations, thereby directing focus on only the developing countries. The focus on the developing countries ignores the fact that climate change is having an effect on the entire world, both directly and indirectly.

The Significance of the Authors' Findings

The most significant observation of both articles is that climate change threatens national, regional and international peace and security. In addition, Barnett and Adger caution that climate change will further undermine human security in the near future by reducing the quality of and access to natural resources that are essential to human survival. The article further outlines that climate change is likely to undermine the ability of nations across the world to provide services and opportunities those help in sustaining livelihoods to their people.

As Barnett and Adger (2007) reveal, this chain of events is most likely to end up in a violent conflict. Their article examines the effects that climate change has on the human population on a broader spectrum that encompasses the economics, politics and violent conflicts. On his part, Homer-Dixon (1991) focuses on the risk that climate change poses to acute conflict specifically. Due to its focused nature, the article is able to examine in depth how climate change can produce three types of conflicts: simple scarcity conflicts, group identity conflicts, and relative deprivation conflicts.

Under simple scarcity conflicts, the article points out to an already immerging trend where countries or people are exhibiting hostility and aggression against another state or group of people as a result of disputes over depletion of resources such as fish, water, and agricultural land. The current conflict over Great Analoa Project on Euphrates River is an example. Due to the shared nature of some of the natural resources around the world, one can only anticipate conflicts between and among nations to intensify over shared resources including water, minerals, trade routes and people among others all over the world.

Under group-identity conflicts, are said to emerge when large populations of people migrate due to environmental change. Intergroup hostilities emerge. The Bangladesh-Assam region is given as an example. The alarming thing about this prediction is that the movement from Latin America to North America is likely to cause new conflicts in the new regions just like the migration of Africans and Arabs from North Africa and the Middle East to Europe as ethnic balances shift. The article also predicts that relative deprivation conflicts brought about by discontent among citizens over their actual level of economic achievement and the level in which they feel they deserve is likely to cause conflicts.

These types of conflicts are likely to emerge in developing countries where environmental problems are likely to hit harder. The ultimate conclusion is that the world is entering into deeply turmoil years, all brought about by the environmental changes as a result of climate change and if not well and urgently addressed, the planet may be engulfed by violence to an extent that it may be unlivable.

The Relevance About the Articles

These two articles are very relevant because they highlight the reality that is global warming and also reveal the urgency of the need to explore possible solutions. To start with, the articles connect climate change with scarcity in essential resources that are vital for human survival, particularly agricultural resources. As climate change takes hold, agriculture will be negatively affected, thereby causing a risk to the survival of humankind. To survive, the articles have predicted that individuals and states will have to take drastic measures to ensure their survival but these measures will likely lead to local, regional and international conflicts. For instance, the article by Barnett and Adger has predicted that nations will start scrambling for resources in such far off places as the Arctic and other international maritime opportunities (Barnett & Adger, 2007).

As the two foresee, states will clash over those resources thereby increasing hostility among nations that if not well adjudicated might cause wars. The articles have also highlighted issues that the world has been witnessing but many had been unaware that these conflicts or potential conflicts are linked to climate change. First, there has been a widespread migration to Europe, Australia, and North America by people from North Africa, Asia, and Latin America respectively. For a long time, very few articles had highlighted the intergroup conflicts that may result due to these migrations. These articles have now shed light on the issue of hostilities between immigrants and citizens of the countries in which they settle that has sometimes resulted in cases of domestic terrorism.

The articles have also examined the hostilities that may emerge between the wealthy and the poor globally and tied the hostility to climate change. What is alarming about this potential conflict is that it is global in nature because economic inequality is present in both developing and developed economies. With climate change continuing to fuel relative hostility, it is safe to say that the world may not know peace for a very long time.

Lastly, it has emerged that climate change poses a threat to capitalism. Climate change affects a broad range of social factors, chief among them being the support that communities receive from the state. Capitalism is hinged upon the idea that the state should have minimal interference on the economy and sometimes the social arrangements of the citizenry and instead to let the free market dictate such issues as price and availability of commodities as well as the distribution of resources. However, this system cannot simply survive in its purest form because climate change demands that the state intervenes in the social and economic affairs of the communities at a deeper level in order to address some of the challenges brought about by negative effects of the climate change.

For example, if governments fail to assist the communities that depend on agriculture, there would emerge a new inequality based on occupation as those communities that rely on agriculture become poorer and poorer as the effects of climate change intensify. Hence, more than before, states will be required to interfere with the affairs of the citizenry to the point that they will become competitors in the economic and social affairs of the state. In the end, climate change will have caused the decline of the capitalist systems in favor of other systems, particularly socialism.

What, If Anything, Do The Articles Get Wrong?

There are a couple of concerns that can be gathered from the two articles. The argument put forward by Barnett and Adger that climate change has had a little negative effect on the developed countries is misleading because it can be interpreted to mean that it is the developing countries that should take a leading role in fighting climate change. Such a concept is impractical and wrong. For a start, these countries do not have the capacity to lead the efforts against climate change in terms of finances, technological capacity, and expertise.

Arguing that the poor countries are affected more is an indirect way of urging them to take a leading role in tackling climate changes globally, an unwise move. To leave this vital exercise to these countries is to concede that the war against climate change has been lost even before it has begun. Secondly, it is simply misleading to argue that climate change will have a devastating effect on the developing countries alone because, in the era of globalization, it is very easy for people to move from one place to another.

Therefore, a lot of people will migrate from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and flock into the cities of Europe, Australia, USA and Canada in search of better prospects, a maneuver that will cause an ethnic imbalance that can cause violence in these new cities. It would be better to clarify that climate change is ravaging the developing economies more aggressively but the effects of it will be felt across the world, relatively equally.

The Better Approach and Why

On the surface, it would seem that the approach by Homer-Dixon is better than that adopted by Barnett and Adger. Superficially, it would emerge that the broad conflict theory adopted by the two authors does not cover some specific regional and country-specific realities captured by Homer-Dixon who uses a wide variety of theories derived from the broader conflict theory (Homer-Dixon, 1991).

However, such a conclusion ignores the perspective that each brings in the understanding of climate change. I believe that the best approach is to adopt both approaches as a means of capturing both the country-specific and global nature of the impact of climate change. As observed, climate change has affected different countries differently. For instance, climate change has affected the developing countries that rely on agricultural resources more than the developed ones that have strong economies that are varied.

These realities are best captured by Homer-Dixon who uses a variety of theories derived from the conflict theory. However, climate change is a global phenomenon and states are still the primary actors in the international stage as highlighted by the realist theory of international relations. Hence, it is the states and...