• 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
    • Navigating the Poles
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • 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
  • Reading Radar

    Weekly Reading

    December 21, 2007 By Rachel Weisshaar
    Globalization and Environmental Challenges: Reconceptualizing Security in the 21st Century: Still searching for a Christmas gift for that serious reader on your list? Consider this comprehensive 1,148-page volume on the dual challenges of post-Cold War security: globalization and environmental degradation. Edited by Hans Günter Brauch, the book contains an unusual section examining security’s philosophical, ethical, and religious contexts, as well as more traditional sections on theories of security and the relationships between environment, security, peace, and development. You can see the table of contents here.

    Landon Lecture (Kansas State University): U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently called for a significant expansion of the United States’ non-military instruments of power. “What is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security—diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development….We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the coming years,” said Gates.

    “Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history”: Lead authors David Zhang and Peter Brecke argue that during the pre-industrial era, climate change was frequently responsible for war, famine, and population decline. “The findings [of our analysis] suggest that worldwide and synchronistic war-peace, population, and price cycles in recent centuries have been driven mainly by long-term climate change,” write the authors in this article, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

    “War and the Environment”: This month’s World Watch Magazine cover story explores the ecological effects of violent conflicts around the world. “Several recent wars in varied environments and different parts of the world reveal that the ecological consequences of war often remain written in the landscape for many years. But the story is not always straightforward or clear. Instead, the landscape is like a palimpsest—a parchment written on, scraped clean, and then written over again—on which the ecological effects of war may be overlain by postwar regeneration or development,” writes Sarah Deweerdt.

    UN World Youth Report 2007: According to this report, opportunities for the 1.2 billion young people aged 15-24 have expanded in recent years. However, this cohort, especially in developing countries, still faces significant challenges, including overcoming poverty and attaining adequate education and health care.
    Topics: climate change, environment, military, population, Reading Radar

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

  • rio favela1 Climate Change Adaptation and Population Dynamics in Latin America and the Caribbean (Report)
    Elliot Soukup: Bruh this is not fake
  • Reading Radar caregiving photo A Dangerous Dichotomy: Women’s Paid and Unpaid Work During COVID-19
    PeacePromoter: This site censors comments, deletes disagreements. Another reason Democrats performed so poorly...
  • south+china+sea U.S. v. China: The Global Battle for Hearts, Minds, and Resources
    yewtai: Anglo super elite have very very poor thinking abilities. They set up China as the world factory,...

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2021. 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