04.20.07

Darfur crisis linked to climate change

Posted in Evolution, you've got mail at 6:26 pm by nemo

Rad-Green

CanWest News Service Monday, April 16, 2007

Darfur crisis linked to climate change

By Mike De Souza

Ottawa - A violent conflict that has claimed more than 300,000 lives in
Darfur is one of the early signs of threats to global security prompted by
climate change, a senior representative of the British government warned
Monday on the eve of a special United Nations debate.

“Like most conflicts, it’s complex. It results from an interplay of a lot of
social and political and possibly ethnic factors,” said John Ashton, Prime
Minister Tony Blair’s special ambassador on climate change.

“But there is absolutely no doubt that it’s a more difficult conflict to
deal with, because on top of all that, you’ve had a 40 per cent fall in the
rain fall in northern Darfur over the last 25 to 30 years again in a way
that’s entirely consistent with what the climate models would have told you
to expect.”

Ashton said his government initiated a special session of the United Nations
Security Council on Tuesday about climate change, in order to kick start a
global effort to take the threat of global warming more seriously. He noted
that the changing climate in Darfur has essentially driven two communities
of people into competition for the same land.

“It’s another early sign of what we’re in for to a much larger degree unless
we get the mitigation side of this right,” he said, during a conference call
that was organized by National Environmental Trust, a U.S. conservation
group.

Similar to the challenges faced during the cold war, he said the threat
required more than just a single policy or group of policies. Instead, he
said a major organizational effort on the political, economic, social,
institutional, cultural and diplomatic fronts would be necessary.

“In the cold war, we had a single well-defined enemy,” he said. “In this
case, the enemy, in a sense, is ourselves. We have this problem because of
the aggregate of billions of consumption decisions taken every day by people
around the world.”

The debate at the UN security council follows the release of a major
international report that predicted deadly impacts from climate change,
including warnings about the extinction of nearly 40 per cent of all species
on earth.

“That’s approaching the magnitude of extinctions after a giant asteroid
collided with the earth 65 million years ago, took out the dinosaurs, and
half the other species,” said Stephen Schneider, a professor of biological
sciences from Stanford University and lead author of the report, during the
conference call.

US defence officials at the Pentagon were also warned in a report, leaked
three years ago, that global warming could spark a nuclear threat as
countries try to defend their dwindling natural resources, energy, food and
water.

“As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to the abrupt
climate change, many countries’ needs will exceed their carrying capacity,”
read the 2003 Pentagon report, authored by Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant,
and Doug Randall from the Global Business Network. “This will create a sense
of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression in order to
reclaim balance…. In this scenario, we can expect alliances of
convenience. The United States and Canada may become one, simplifying border
controls. Or, Canada might keep its hydropower - causing energy problems in
the US.”

Canada’s Environment Minister John Baird said he was supportive of the UN
debate on security, but was unable to explain the government’s position.

“I don’t have the specifics in front of me,” said Baird after question
period in the House of Commons.

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