• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • rss
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Friday Podcasts
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Disaster Relief Law Updated to Enhance Resilience of Critical Infrastructure
  • Groundwater Scarcity, Pollution Set India on Perilous Course
  • Toxic Water, Toxic Crops: India’s Public Health Time Bomb
  • The Tetherball Effect: How Efforts to Stop Migration Backfire
  • Anticipatory Intelligence: Climate Change in the National Intelligence Strategy
  • DISASTER RELIEF LAW UPDATED
    TO ENHANCE RESILIENCE

  • GROUNDWATER SCARCITY AND POLLUTION
    BODE ILL FOR INDIA

  • TOXIC WATER
    TOXIC CROPS

  • HOW ANTI-MIGRATION
    EFFORTS BACKFIRE

  • CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE
    NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE STRATEGY

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
prev next
  • On Tap: Seeking a Game Changer to Stop China’s River Pollution

    ›
    China Environment Forum  //  February 21, 2019  //  By Jiameizi Jia
    Green Camel Bell photo

    In Wuxi, a city 84 miles west of Shanghai, nearly 2 million residents had foul smelling green water coming out of their taps for a week in May 2007. Wuxi sits on the shores of Lake Tai, China’s third largest freshwater lake. And on that week in May, it experienced a perfect cocktail of industrial effluents, agricultural runoff, and sewage, which created a toxic cyanobacterial bloom, leaving 70 percent of the city’s water undrinkable. The Lake Tai incident was not an anomaly. Poor oversight and enforcement of water pollution regulations and standards has long left between 30 and 50 percent of China’s surface and groundwater undrinkable.

    MORE
  • Missing Peace: Why Transboundary Conservation Areas Are Not Resolving Conflicts

    ›
    Guest Contributor  //  February 19, 2019  //  By Elaine (Lan Yin) Hsiao
    Virunga National Park

    Transboundary Conservation Areas, such as Parks for Peace, have been heralded for their potential to simultaneously contribute to biodiversity conservation and peace, but evidence to this effect has been elusive.  In fact, more indications suggest that transboundary conservation areas, including Parks for Peace, rely on pre-existing international peace between countries for formalization and on-going non-violent relations for continuity. Although they are primarily designed for ecological peace (based largely on arguments of ecological connectivity), they are not immune to environmental harms.  Perhaps even more challenging is how “fortress conservation” and “green securitization” compromise social peace.

    MORE
  • Choke Point Solutions: Can Western China Lower its Coal-Water Risk?

    ›
    China Environment Forum  //  Choke Point  //  February 13, 2019  //  By Lyssa Freese & Molly Bradtke
    insight cover5

    China’s war on pollution and goals to lower carbon emissions are noteworthy as the United States takes a back seat in the global energy transition. Cleaner air and low carbon efforts in China could significantly change the country’s environmental health story and contribute to global efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions. However, China’s energy reforms look less green now than they seemed after Paris in 2015. While China’s rate of increase in CO2 emissions has slowed and the share of renewables in its energy mix continues to grow, the Chinese government’s pursuit of clean air along its east has shifted more polluting and water-intensive coal-fired power development into the country’s west. To continue to lead the way in this “Asian Century,” China must further incorporate water-saving reforms into its energy and environment plans.

    MORE
  • Warzone Conservation in Afghanistan: Build a National Park, Build Democracy

    ›
    From the Wilson Center  //  February 12, 2019  //  By Kyla Peterson
    7462701208_1de096f828_k

    “For people who have been refugees for the last 30 years, protecting Afghan wildlife was a way of protecting your own identity,” said Alex Dehgan, CEO and founder of Conservation X Labs, who recently spoke at the Wilson Center at the launch of his book, The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation. He credited his success in Afghanistan to crucial community members. By tapping into their local pride in conservation, Dehgan was able to establish the foundations for the country’s first national park, Band-e-Amir National Park, which opened 2009 in order to protect the endangered snow leopard and the rich biodiversity of Bamyan Province.  

    MORE
  • Top 5 Posts for January 2019

    ›
    What You Are Reading  //  February 11, 2019  //  By Amanda King
    2017-07-India-Food-Water-Security-JGanter-B11A9808-Edit-Edit-2500

    India’s impending health crisis can be found in its toxic water supply. In January’s most popular post, Jennifer Möller-Gulland, J. Carl Ganter, and Cody T. Pope of Circle of Blue report on India’s widespread use of contaminated wastewater by farmers to raise their crops. Water contamination caused by the discharge of untreated, highly polluted industrial, municipal and agricultural wastewater has spread deeper into the country’s major rivers and food supply causing burning lakes, decreasing agricultural exports, and increasing rates of diseases. With no alternative, India’s farmers pray that wastewater will continue to flow.

    MORE
  • New Developments in the Field of Environmental Peacebuilding

    ›
    Guest Contributor  //  February 8, 2019  //  By Carl Bruch & Sierra Killian
    26687929865_1d378ed500_o

    For those working at the intersection of environment, conflict, and peace, 2018 was a notable year. A new conceptual and operational framework for environmental peacebuilding began to emerge. Two particularly substantial developments in 2018 helped to institutionalize environmental peacebuilding: the debut of a massive open online course (MOOC) on environmental security and sustaining peace and the launch of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association.

    MORE
  • Why Caring Creates Problems — and What Government Can Do

    ›
    Dot-Mom  //  Guest Contributor  //  February 7, 2019  //  By Guest Contributor
    Apolitical 1

    This piece by Apolitical is part of Apolitical’s spotlight series on the care economy, in partnership with the Wilson Center.

    From the parents on whom you depended in the first days after you were born, to the nurses who’ll likely become an ever more frequent fixture of your final years, care — and caregivers — are integral to all of our lives.

    MORE
  • U.S. Intelligence Community Recognizes Climate Change in Worldwide Threat Assessment

    ›
    February 5, 2019  //  By Isabella Caltabiano
    Threat Assessment Cover

    The 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, released on January 29, mentions climate change as a threat that is “likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.” The report features new topics such as election interference and threats to economic competitiveness while still including continuing threats such as cyber espionage and attacks, terrorism, and climate change. As a statement from Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Daniel R. Coats, for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the assessment provides an overview of the national security threats facing the nation.

    MORE
  Older Posts
View full site

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • Virunga National Park Missing Peace: Why Transboundary Conservation Areas Are Not Resolving Conflicts
    Larry Swatuk: Dr. Hsiao's overview of Parks for Peace is, in my view, quite accurate. In Bram Buscher's terms,...
  • H4plus_SierraLeone Changing the Narrative on Fertility Decline in Africa
    NGPM: "(if it goes to Singaporean levels like 0.8 we can worry)" Singapore is a special case as it is...
  • Threat Assessment Cover U.S. Intelligence Community Recognizes Climate Change in Worldwide Threat Assessment
    Helena Williams: A detail assessment presenting the climate change facts on the global dangers humans are facing....

What We’re Reading

  • Tribes Use Western and Indigenous Science to Prepare for Climate Change
  • Alberta's NDP government says emissions reductions prove carbon pricing works
  • Bolsonaro government takes aim at Vatican over Amazon meeting
  • Planting 1.2 Trillion Trees Could Cancel Out a Decade of CO2 Emissions, Scientists Find
  • Teachers to join climate protests to demand curriculum reform | Environment
More »
  • Supporting
    Partner
  • USAID-logo
  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2019. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000