NYT Magazine Features “Climate Conflicts” as One of 2007’s Ideas

• Sean Peoples

While flipping through The New York Times Magazine’s “The 7^th Annual Year in Ideas,” I was struck by one of the entries in the annual rundown of innovation. This year’s list pointed to climate change’s potential to lead to conflict—“climate conflicts,” as author Stéphanie Giry put it. In a year that witnessed growing news coverage and public awareness of climate change, “it took no time at all, it seems, for leaders around the world to latch onto the notion that global warming will bring war,” wrote Giry.

The magazine’s short blurb, however, fails to capture the complexity of an issue that is steeped in geopolitical and scientific nuance. Although Giry mentions the conflict in Darfur, Al Gore’s recent Nobel Peace Prize, and the CNA Corporation report by retired military leaders on climate change and security, she is forced to truncate her analysis of these developments. If you are looking for nuance and substance on the connections between conflict, climate change, population dynamics, and poverty, visit the environmental security portion of ECSP’s website.