I believe that the greatest threat to global security is global warming and climate change. Global warming is affecting everyone everywhere in this world at all times. Global warming is something as bad, if not worse than terrorism. When asked to define what the greatest security threat is, few would ever think of global warming as a “threat” to our nation’s safety, but if you look at the facts you can tell it is.
The effects of long scale global warming would affect most people in this world. While perusing the internet I came across this quote, “The IPCC also predicted that carbon dioxide levels could double by the year 2100, causing temperatures to increase from 2 to 10.4 degrees F. Such a temperature change would likely bring a greater incidence of floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and other forms of extreme weather—which in turn could cause an increase in storm-related deaths, infectious diseases, and economic crises, analysts warned” (http://www.enotes.com/global-warming-threat-article). Global warming effects would cause dramatic impacts in the conflicts between countries. For example, flooding (as seen in our leadership gateway simulation) would cause conflicts to arise between countries due to the consequences of refugees (from lost land), disease, death, scarce resources and much more. And with scarce resources, conflicts may arise between countries over resources and not having enough to support their citizens.
For example, today we see the water conflicts in Africa. The effects of there not being enough water proves the point that scarce water resources can lead to tensions in countries which ultimately lead to conflict. Since we all need access to natural resources, when they get limited, countries will begin to fight, and wars will erupt over natural resources.
Bill Clinton agrees with me saying, “"The most profound security threat we face today is global warming,". We need to address the issue of global warming as soon as possible. (http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Clinton_Says_Climate_Change_Greatest_Threat.html)
Katie--
ReplyDeleteI can see your point about global warming and environmental instability being a big issue today. I think one of the main reasons for this threat is the fact that climate change etc. is something that will truly impact us in the future, and people seem to be ignorant of the fact that this issue is not going to be ameliorated any time soon without significant work and focus. However, I also think that there are other issues (for example, I wrote about education) that are more prominent for the time being, and people will more easily focus on them. The problem with global warming as the primary issue is that many will have a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that although global warming is a significant problems, they cannot really notice the effects at the time being.