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Security and Environmental Change

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Security and Environmental Change

Metadata

  • Author: Simon Dalby
  • Full Title: Security and Environmental Change
  • Category: #books

Highlights

  • either; Thomas Malthus’ (1798/1970) Essay on the Principle of Population has been read for two centuries, while human population and its mode of subsistence have expanded in ways that were inconceivable to the author writing at the beginning of the industrial revolution. (Location 197)
  • The debate about “the limits to growth” was accentuated when, in the aftermath of the October 1973 war between Syria, Egypt, and Israel, a number of oil embargos resulted and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) hiked prices (Yergin 1991). (Location 308)
  • Environmental matters returned to the international agenda in the late 1980s, when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, ozone holes, burning rainforests, and the hot summer of 1988 focused attention as the Cold War subsided. (Location 313)
  • Malthus’ argument is remembered as suggesting that we breed faster than we can expand our abilities to feed ourselves and so we ensure that misery persists. This propensity can be tackled, Malthus thought, through moral reform and sexual abstinence, or more recently, through the adoption of birth-control methods, on the part of those who previously supposedly bred too enthusiastically. Malthus’ concerns were also within a larger geopolitical imagination (Location 344)
  • As Lohmann (2005) puts it, these Malthusian fears are not usually about us but about “them,” the poor and the foreign, who breed too profusely for “our” comfort. (Location 354)
  • humankind. Titled The Limits to Growth , the report, first published in 1972, left little doubt about its findings. It extended concerns with food and population to the larger context of humanity’s future. The project built a formal mathematical model of the world “to investigate five major trends of global concern – accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment” (Meadows et al. 1974: 21). (Location 388)
  • result. These displaced people may in turn damage marginal lands unsuited to agriculture, or swell the ranks of the poor in urban shanty towns and become a matter of concern to environmentalists (Homer-Dixon 1999). (Location 849)
  • Daniel Deudney (1990, 1999a, 1999b) explored this line of argument further in his writings and raised the additional point that invoking national security may actually be counterproductive, given that international cooperation is what is needed to deal with most environmental difficulties. Invoking nationalism and thinking in military terms only make matters worse by specifying external threats rather than common dangers. The threats from traditional military concerns of security are different from environmental ones and hence traditional ways of thinking are inappropriate. (Location 926)
  • If, as Deudney concluded, you add into the whole argument the point that wars are unlikely to be caused by environmental difficulties anyway, as other scholars subsequently pointed out in detail (Homer-Dixon 1999; Kahl 2006), the logic of linking security to environment collapses and the case for changing what we mean by security and how we think about achieving it become unavoidable. (Location 936)
  • Earth-system science makes it clear that in glurbanizing the biosphere we have dramatically changed many of the basic parameters of human existence. All the movement of goods, raw materials, and people has introduced new physical and biological processes into the biosphere, changing many facets of how it behaves and probably increasing the risk of extreme weather events. (Location 1899)
  • Crop failures in droughts may not be fatal to subsistence farmers, depending on the larger societal context and the availability of effective governance and relief arrangements. (Location 1925)
  • This formulation of vulnerability relates to more or less discrete events and is loosely consistent with the second dimension of human security, described by the UNDP as “protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or in communities” (UNDP 1994: 23). (Location 1947)
  • discussions of migration have frequently invoked geopolitical security narratives in considering the displacements caused by climate change. (Location 2550)
  • More disturbing is the more recent construction of the category of “fugee” in the dystopic vision of the near future in the movie Children of Men , where military means are used to arrest foreigners and deport them from Britain. (Location 2585)

public: true

title: Security and Environmental Change longtitle: Security and Environmental Change author: Simon Dalby url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2022-02-26 type: books tags:

Security and Environmental Change

rw-book-cover

Metadata

  • Author: Simon Dalby
  • Full Title: Security and Environmental Change
  • Category: #books

Highlights

  • either; Thomas Malthus’ (1798/1970) Essay on the Principle of Population has been read for two centuries, while human population and its mode of subsistence have expanded in ways that were inconceivable to the author writing at the beginning of the industrial revolution. (Location 197)
  • The debate about “the limits to growth” was accentuated when, in the aftermath of the October 1973 war between Syria, Egypt, and Israel, a number of oil embargos resulted and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) hiked prices (Yergin 1991). (Location 308)
  • Environmental matters returned to the international agenda in the late 1980s, when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, ozone holes, burning rainforests, and the hot summer of 1988 focused attention as the Cold War subsided. (Location 313)
  • Malthus’ argument is remembered as suggesting that we breed faster than we can expand our abilities to feed ourselves and so we ensure that misery persists. This propensity can be tackled, Malthus thought, through moral reform and sexual abstinence, or more recently, through the adoption of birth-control methods, on the part of those who previously supposedly bred too enthusiastically. Malthus’ concerns were also within a larger geopolitical imagination (Location 344)
  • As Lohmann (2005) puts it, these Malthusian fears are not usually about us but about “them,” the poor and the foreign, who breed too profusely for “our” comfort. (Location 354)
  • humankind. Titled The Limits to Growth , the report, first published in 1972, left little doubt about its findings. It extended concerns with food and population to the larger context of humanity’s future. The project built a formal mathematical model of the world “to investigate five major trends of global concern – accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and a deteriorating environment” (Meadows et al. 1974: 21). (Location 388)
  • result. These displaced people may in turn damage marginal lands unsuited to agriculture, or swell the ranks of the poor in urban shanty towns and become a matter of concern to environmentalists (Homer-Dixon 1999). (Location 849)
  • Daniel Deudney (1990, 1999a, 1999b) explored this line of argument further in his writings and raised the additional point that invoking national security may actually be counterproductive, given that international cooperation is what is needed to deal with most environmental difficulties. Invoking nationalism and thinking in military terms only make matters worse by specifying external threats rather than common dangers. The threats from traditional military concerns of security are different from environmental ones and hence traditional ways of thinking are inappropriate. (Location 926)
  • If, as Deudney concluded, you add into the whole argument the point that wars are unlikely to be caused by environmental difficulties anyway, as other scholars subsequently pointed out in detail (Homer-Dixon 1999; Kahl 2006), the logic of linking security to environment collapses and the case for changing what we mean by security and how we think about achieving it become unavoidable. (Location 936)
  • Earth-system science makes it clear that in glurbanizing the biosphere we have dramatically changed many of the basic parameters of human existence. All the movement of goods, raw materials, and people has introduced new physical and biological processes into the biosphere, changing many facets of how it behaves and probably increasing the risk of extreme weather events. (Location 1899)
  • Crop failures in droughts may not be fatal to subsistence farmers, depending on the larger societal context and the availability of effective governance and relief arrangements. (Location 1925)
  • This formulation of vulnerability relates to more or less discrete events and is loosely consistent with the second dimension of human security, described by the UNDP as “protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or in communities” (UNDP 1994: 23). (Location 1947)
  • discussions of migration have frequently invoked geopolitical security narratives in considering the displacements caused by climate change. (Location 2550)
  • More disturbing is the more recent construction of the category of “fugee” in the dystopic vision of the near future in the movie Children of Men , where military means are used to arrest foreigners and deport them from Britain. (Location 2585)