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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • ‘Earth 2100’ To Explore Climate, Natural Resources, Population Growth

    June 2, 2009 By Rachel Weisshaar
    ABC’s Earth 2100 documentary, airing tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST, will feature many ECSP speakers—including Jared Diamond and Peter Gleick—as well as the Center for a New American Security’s (CNAS) Clout and Climate Change War Game. Held in Washington, D.C., in July 2008, the war game focused on the national security implications of climate change.

    Earth 2100 explores possible worst-case scenarios for this century that could be triggered by a “perfect storm” of population growth, resource depletion, and climate change. Environmental security expert Thomas Homer-Dixon tells host Bob Woodruff that “energy, climate food, population, economic pressures—any one of these challenges might be very serious in and of itself. But because they are happening all simultaneously, it’s going to be very difficult for our governments to cope.”

    During the climate-change war game, “every country sort of hewed to what you would expect,” said CNAS Vice President for Natural Security Sharon Burke at an ECSP event earlier this year.

    “The EU team spent the first two hours debating whether they could really be a country; the Indian team instantly came up with a negotiating strategy that sounded cooperative and brilliant but was completely impossible to execute; the Chinese team was, ‘No, we’re not going to do anything unless you pay us’; and the American team was keen to lead, only nobody was following,” she said.

    One of the key lessons from the game, Burke added, was that “everything comes down to what China is prepared to do.” She also described insights from the war game in a New Security Beat guest post.

    Several war-game participants are now members of the Obama administration, including Todd Stern, the lead U.S. negotiator on climate change; Michèle Flournoy, under secretary of defense for policy; and David Sandalow, assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Energy.

    An ABC producer working on Earth 2100 consulted ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko earlier this year.
    Topics: climate change, conflict, natural resources, population
    • http://www.blogger.com/profile/18337694112852162181 Geoff Dabelko

      I missed the broadcast tonight but expect to watch it shortly. I am interested to see if it is all gloom and doom. It was certainly the angle they wanted to take – if all things go badly, how bad could it be. I think there is a real danger in that, not because I think things are rosy and on the right path. But because fear and depression without a path or a way forward leads to tuning out or rejection as oversell. We saw it with the fantastical version of climate in the Day After Tomorrow and in a more serious way, in the whole "Coming Anarchy" framing of the environment and conflict thesis in the mid-1990s courtesy of Robert Kaplan's translation of Homer-Dixon's work (environment the national security issue of the 21st century; Homer-Dixon to be more influential than Kennan etc). Becomes an oversell that is a target and easier mark for opponents. I am hoping that this show is not in that vein. Certainly Sharon Burke's shop does quality work and having participated in the dry run of the climate war game CNAS put on, it was well done and didn't have the 2100 timeframe or the all bad things at once element. Need to watch it before passing judgment obviously.

    • http://www.collide-a-scape.com kkloor

      Excellent points, Geoff. I too, wonder, if the emphasis on doom and gloom aspects have a paralyzing effect.

      I was traveling yesterday and missed the show. So I'll reserve judgment as well.

    • http://www.blogger.com/profile/00957532713455374321 Will Rogers

      The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has just released its major findings report for "Clout and Climate Change War Game".

      You can find the major findings report, as well as participant briefing materials and materials generated from the war game on the climate change war game project page hosted on the CNAS website.

    • http://www.cnas.org Sharon Burke

      Hi Geoff — I was on tenterhooks watching, because we really had no idea what the show would be like. At the 2050 mark (1 hour in) I was a little nervous that it was swiftly heading over the top. But I think the producers were really quite smart and thoughtful. While they fully intended to show a worst case scenario (that I've confirmed with two climate scientists is plausible), they did pull back from the doom and gloom brink in two ways. First, they showed about a decade (I think) where we get it right — 2060, we start living differently, both in terms of dramatically cutting emissions and preparing for consequences. But of course, if we don't do that til 2060, that's too late — and so it was in their show. The Greenland Ice Sheet collapses and that's that. But I think the decade of hope was an important touch, and the last 15 minutes were about bringing people back to 2009 and what to do. For a little while, it was the standard stuff — you can turn off the lights, use CFLs… But then it pointed out that while that's important, it's not enough — it will take the action of govts, and moreover the concerted action of govts. And they went back to our wargame and posited what would happen if the outcome of international negotiations (i.e., Copenhagen) were different.

      I thought they used an interesting set of conceits to try to visualize a future that is pretty hard to imagine — it was a high risk strategy, and I thought really great. Not for everyone, probably, but really interesting (they basically made it a graphic novel of a fictional future). Very interesting project!

    • http://www.blogger.com/profile/18337694112852162181 Geoff Dabelko

      Thanks so much for the posts Keith, Will, and Sharon. I obviously need to find a copy and watch it. I've heard very bifurcated love/hate reviews. I did consistently hear though Sharon that they made very effective use of your game and footage from that which I was pleased to hear.

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