“The possibility of a world transformed by climate change is not a science fiction image of a post-apocalyptic society; it is not a road warrior movie. It is happening now. There is another holocaust now in Darfur.” Brad Miller (D-NC), chairman of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology, chose strong words to open the subcommittee’s September 26, 2007, hearing “The National Security Implications of Climate Change.”

The first witness was General Gordon R. Sullivan (USA Ret.), chairman of the CNA Corporation’s Military Advisory Board, which wrote the groundbreaking report National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. Sullivan reminded the congressmen of the potential destabilizing impacts of climate change—reduced access to freshwater, impaired food production, the spread of diseases, land loss due to flooding, and population displacement, among others—and their potential security consequences, which include an elevated risk of state failure, the growth of terrorism, mass migrations leading to regional and global tensions, and conflicts over resources.

China’s geopolitical importance should make it of particular concern to policymakers, said Alexander Lennon, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to Lennon, two-thirds of China’s cities are currently experiencing water and food shortages. These environmental issues already cause unrest among the population, and the combined effects of climate change and rapid urbanization could increase tensions. A destabilized China, however, is only one of the various climate-related problems the United States could face in the future. Climate change could also foster terrorism, Lennon said. Rampant poverty, growing economic inequality, state failure, and ethnic tensions form a fertile substrate for terrorist groups.

James Woolsey, vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton and former director of the CIA, argued that the threats posed by climate change and terrorism should not be isolated from one another. Indeed, “terrorists may exploit vulnerabilities in our energy production and distribution or other weaknesses in our infrastructure,” he said. Fuel convoys in Iraq, for instance, are a primary target for insurgents. Woolsey encouraged policymakers to opt for a plan that would reduce both threats simultaneously. His solution: improving U.S. energy efficiency.

As the nation’s largest single consumer of oil (1.8 percent of the U.S. total), the Department of Defense (DoD) is already working on improving energy efficiency, said Kent Butts, director of National Security Issues at the U.S. Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership. More generally, he continued, DoD is devoting considerable attention to the destabilizing impacts of climate change, although there is no overarching directive that guides these efforts. The Navy, for instance, is currently analyzing the security implications of shrinking ice sheets in the Arctic.

U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) shared his concerns regarding the military’s efforts to increase vehicles’ efficiency. Focusing too much on climate change, he argued, could be harmful to U.S. troops’ security. “If we decide to produce lighter vehicles in order to consume less oil, soldiers will be less protected. Aren’t our troops more important than climate change?” he asked. Sullivan responded that if lighter vehicles were produced, they would be designed so they protected soldiers as well as today’s heavier vehicles do.

Andrew Price-Smith, a professor of political science at Colorado College, emphasized another potential area of impact: global health. He explained that an increase in temperatures and precipitation could favor the proliferation and geographical expansion of infectious diseases such as cholera and malaria. The spread of deadly diseases to new areas could in turn undermine the economy (through absenteeism, increased medical costs, and premature deaths) and foster political instability.

Finally, several representatives shared their skepticism concerning climate change. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who said they did not believe human activities have contributed to climate change, argued that the United States should not try to mitigate climate change, but instead try to adapt to it. “Fostering a more robust economy is our strongest defense against climate change,” said Sensenbrenner. “Because it is too late to prevent rising temperatures, the best response is to ensure that our economy is strong enough to adequately respond.” In other words, he was suggesting that we should not try to reduce carbon emissions, because doing so would slow economic growth. He concluded on an optimistic note: “Everyone agrees that the wealthiest countries and individuals will be the least affected by global warming. Putting more people in a position to afford air conditioning will actually save lives.” Needless to say, not everyone in the room shared his view.

Climate change could be to blame for many of the wars in China during the past millennium, says an article published recently in Human Ecology. The study, the first quantitative examination of the link between conflict and temperature changes, is a milestone in climate change research.

David Zhang and co-authors compared the 899 wars that occurred in eastern China between A.D. 1000 and 1911 with climatic data for the same period. They found that warfare frequency in eastern China—particularly in that region’s southern part—correlated strongly with temperature oscillations. Warfare ratios in the cold phases were twice as high as in the warm phases. Furthermore, almost all dynastic changes and warfare peaks coincided with cold phases.

“In general, rebellion was the dominant category of war,” write the authors. “The rebellions were predominantly peasant uprisings induced by famine and heavy taxation, since farmers were always the first to suffer from declining agricultural production.”

The authors surmise that by affecting agriculture, cooler temperatures disrupted food supply, especially in the ecologically vulnerable northern part of eastern China. Food scarcity could have triggered rebellions or forced people to migrate, further exacerbating food shortages in certain areas. Migration could also have generated tension between groups, producing local conflicts—especially when China was populated by nomadic tribes that could move freely. The authors also hypothesize that food scarcity may have encouraged opposing Chinese armies to conduct cross-border raids on each other’s crops. However, additional, more detailed analysis of the pathways leading from cooler temperatures to conflict in eastern China is needed.

It is unclear whether the correlation observed by Zhang in eastern China will hold true for other parts of the world. We should also be careful not to use this one study to draw premature connections to today’s unprecedented climate change. However, we hope additional quantitative studies will be carried out; they would be solid contributions to the research on climate and security, which currently suffers from a scarcity of empirical data.

Climate and security links are definitely in vogue these days. Some of the work on these connections has been measured and nuanced; some has been less judicious. I want to flag a recently published rich resource that falls in the former category and avoids the hyperbole that characterizes the latter.

The academic journal Political Geography–admittedly not a publication on every policymaker’s desk–devotes its current issue to climate change and conflict. The six pieces feature the most recent work of some longtime environmental security contributors such as Australian geographer Jon Barnett and Norwegian peace researcher Nils Petter Gleditsch. The articles were first presented at a June 2005 conference in Oslo convened by Gleditsch’s International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and geographer Karen O’Brien’s Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS). Visit this space again soon for a more detailed analysis of the contributions.

The world could face a global food crisis in the next 50 years, said experts at a recent UN-backed conference in Iceland on sustainable development. Their calculus is simple: In the coming half century, there will be more people on the planet, but rapid land degradation will make it difficult to produce commensurate increases in food. Warmer temperatures and more frequent floods, caused by climate change, will diminish soil fertility in many parts of the world—particularly in developing countries. As 800 million people are already at risk for hunger today, population growth alone is likely increase global food insecurity.

The expansion of biofuels could potentially exacerbate food shortages. A major UN report on biofuels warns that as more fields are devoted to producing corn, palm oil, sugar cane, and other agricultural products for use as biofuels, the amount of food that is produced for human consumption could decrease.

Climate change’s effects on marine ecosystems could also contribute to a food crisis. Changes in water temperature and salinity can damage coral reefs, which scientists estimate support between one-quarter and one-third of all marine life. In addition, a recent study published in Nature shows that phytoplankton—single-celled ocean plants that form the base of the marine food chain—are growing more slowly as the water at Earth’s mid and low latitudes becomes warmer. As the supply of phytoplankton becomes limited, fish have less food to eat, and at the end of the chain, human beings suffer from a scarcity of fish—a particularly dire situation in communities where fish is a primary source of food.

According to scientists at the Iceland forum, competition over scarce resources could lead to conflict. Studies on the relationship between environmental degradation and conflict indicate that such conflicts are likely to be intrastate and of low intensity. Scientists suggesting that food scarcity could trigger classic interstate wars, such as James Lovelock, who predicts that China and Russia will clash to exploit Siberia’s new fertile soils, are in the minority.

Yet policymakers should not be indifferent to food scarcity in developing countries merely because it is not likely to cause global-scale conflicts. Indeed, if the developing world faces more famines and malnutrition in the coming years, pressure on Western governments will be high to intervene.

A disorganized, inefficient foreign aid structure can wreak havoc on what the current administration refers to as “transformational diplomacy”—the attempt to build and nurture democratically elected governments. In our post-September 11^thworld, failed states (also labeled “precarious states” or “weak states”) have garnered increasing attention as targets for transformational diplomacy. For the U.S., ensuring sustainable and well-governed states depends partially on doling out foreign aid as collateral for reliable partnerships. But nations with limited internal capacity and extreme poverty levels teeter on the edge of uncertainty, and inefficient allocation of aid can further destabilize states that are already vulnerable to becoming havens for nefarious activity.

The rush to put biofuels in our gas tanks has given those of us analyzing natural resources and conflict some work to do. How are European and American policy mandates to dramatically increase the use of biofuels affecting the places that grow biofuel inputs? It seems fair to say that little consideration has been given to the potential conflict and equity impacts of this surge in demand for palm oil, sugarcane, and corn.

The recent discovery of a vast underground lake in Darfur has prompted hope for a resolution to the region’s terrible conflict, which is partially rooted in tensions over scarce resources—particularly water. Yet the lake is not a silver bullet. First of all, there may not be any water in it. Alain Gachet, a French geologist who has studied mineral and water exploration in Africa for 20 years, told BBC News that he thinks the lake is probably dry.

In addition, as The New York Times astutely observed, it is the way in which natural resources are managed—not simply their scarcity or abundance—that determines whether they further peace or conflict. Time and again, inexpert or corrupt management of plentiful natural resources has plunged nations into violence and poverty, rather than granted them prosperity. In Africa, this “resource curse” has been a regrettably common phenomenon.

A report released by the UN Environment Programme last month and an opinion piece by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also highlighted how environmental factors have contributed to the crisis in Darfur.

My friend and colleague is in jail. Unjustly.

Her name is Haleh Esfandiari and she is a grandmother. In early May, she was thrust into solitary confinement in Iran’s Evin Prison with a single blanket. She hasn’t been allowed to meet with her friends, family, or lawyers since then. This picture shows Evin Prison nestled within the leafy northern suburbs of Tehran at the foot of snow-capped mountains, but the prison has none of the bucolic qualities that the image suggests. “Notorious” is the ubiquitous descriptor.

Haleh’s “crime” is doing what we do every day here at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.: provide a safe space where scholars, policymakers, and ordinary men and women can learn from one another through open, non-partisan dialogue on today’s most pressing issues. Or at least we thought it was safe.

Haleh’s job is to foster discussion of the many political and social issues at stake in the Middle East, often with a special focus on Iran, one of the two countries she calls home. Haleh is a world-renowned expert on Iran’s rich language, culture, history, and politics. Yet the Iranian Intelligence Ministry has charged her and a handful of other Iranian-Americans with attempting to foment a velvet revolution to overthrow the theocratic regime.

“Nonsense,” says Lee Hamilton, the former congressman who is my and Haleh’s boss at the Wilson Center. As other commentators have pointed out, Haleh is more likely than most in Washington to give those sympathetic to the Ahmadinejad government an opportunity to make their case. She assiduously avoids having financial supporters for her Middle East Program who might compromise her neutrality. She even refuses to go on Voice of America for fear it would associate her with the Bush administration’s strategy of trying to oust regimes rather than change regime behavior.

I serve as a program director at the Wilson Center, just as Haleh does. While her area of expertise is U.S.-Iranian relations, mine is finding ways to use the environment to build trust and confidence between adversaries. Haleh and I have routinely collaborated on environmental and health issues. For instance, in 1999, Haleh and I hosted ten Iranians who headed environmental nongovernmental organizations or were professors of environmental studies. They came to the United States as guests of Search for Common Ground in order to develop new allies in battling environmental challenges in Iran and gain a deeper understanding of Iran’s environmental issues. In both Tehran and Los Angeles, for instance, tall mountains trap pollution over the city, causing poor air quality.

Search also hoped that the Iranian delegation would build civil society links between Iran and the U.S. that could serve as a baby step in a long path to reconciliation between the two countries’ peoples and governments. In this way, environmental dialogue may serve as a “lifeline” for dialogue when a relationship is otherwise stormy. Some of us have called this and similar efforts “environmental peacemaking.”

In May 2005 it was my turn to go to Iran. Whereas Haleh routinely visits Iran because her ailing mother still resides there, it was my first venture. My previous attempts to reciprocate the Iranian delegation’s visit had fallen through because I had been denied a visa. But this time, the Iranian government was doing the inviting. Under the government of President Khatami, “dialogue among civilizations” was a key foreign policy initiative. Massoumeh Ebtekar, Iran’s vice president for environment, partnered with the UN Environment Programme to organize a large international conference entitled “Environment, Peace, and the Dialogue of Civilizations.”

The country’s first female vice president, Madame Ebtekar gained revolutionary street cred as “Mary,” the student spokesperson during the 1979 embassy takeover and hostage crisis. In organizing the conference, she was using environmental issues to engage governments (six ministers of environment attended the conference), UN leaders, and civil society representatives from all over the world. When President Khatami addressed the attendees, it was clear that even the highest levels of the Iranian government supported Ebtekar’s initiative.

Progress made those days in Tehran was hard to measure. For me, the most encouraging signs came not at the conference but on the wide boulevards and tree-lined riverside pathways of Isfahan, where a Norwegian colleague and I ventured as tourists. Looking distinctly non-Iranian, the two of us were repeatedly approached by men, women, and children, who were uniformly welcoming. The short version of each conversation: Don’t you think our country is beautiful? Our governments have their differences, but you shouldn’t mistake those disagreements for Iranian hatred of the American people.

It is this sympathetic view toward Iran that I am sure Haleh wants us to bear in mind as our outrage at her ludicrous detention intensifies. No one has been allowed any in-person contact with her since her May 8th arrest. Monitored minute-long calls to her 93-year-old mother are the only source of information on Haleh’s condition. Naturally, she assures her mother that she is fine, but we have no way of knowing whether or not that is true. And no one is “fine” after being falsely charged with capital crimes and spending more than two months in solitary confinement.

The generous view of Iranians that I gained on my one short trip there is harder and harder to keep in mind. The government changed hands just after I visited in the summer of 2005, and the dramatically more hostile Ahmadinejad regime has jettisoned any efforts toward regular dialogue on even less-contentious issues than nuclear proliferation. President Khatami, Madame Ebtekar, and other government officials seeking dialogue with the West have been sidelined. I am afraid to even email the Iranian colleagues I met during my visit for fear that they would come under suspicion for such an exchange.

Imprisoning Haleh has not done Iran’s government any favors. All the Intelligence Ministry has accomplished by detaining her is silencing one of the most thoughtful, evenhanded voices currently speaking about Iran and the Middle East. Iran’s imprisonment of Haleh is damaging its global image and reducing the international community’s sympathy for its goals. We demand Haleh’s immediate release. It will be to her benefit and to Iran’s.

More information on Haleh’s case is available at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ and http://www.freehaleh.org./

This piece was also published on Gristmill.