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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Climate Scientists in the Policy Realm
›August 14, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
As someone who sits between scholarship and policy at the Woodrow Wilson Center, I am sympathetic to Harvard Professor John Holdren’s efforts to articulate critical scientific issues in short, digestible formats. Holdren, who also directs the Woods Hole Research Center, recently tackled what he views as the dangers of climate change deniers in a Boston Globe op-ed—which is, by definition, brief. According to an email sent by Holdren, the reaction to “Convincing the climate-change skeptics” has been quite critical, with castigation running 6 or 7 to 1 over praise.
Holdren’s op-ed neglected to explicitly note that healthy skepticism is a necessary foundation for good science. In a response posted online, Holdren provides his original text including this point, which was edited out by the Globe—a common frustration of scientists who attempt to simplify complex arguments to fit the constraints of newspapers and more popular outlets (he was on Letterman in April).Those scientists who excoriate Holdren for underplaying skepticism are often the same ones who complain about bad (or no) climate policy—but refuse to engage policymakers and the media (and, therefore, forfeit their right to complain). Just as bad, some scientists assume policymakers will find their book or article, read it, understand it, and glean the correct conclusion from the scientific evidence—with no translation necessary. I’ve said it before: to reach policymakers, we have to speak their language.
I also think headline writers are the bane of every serious op-ed or news story. As someone who spends a lot of time on the faux water wars argument, I have come to believe that headline writers seeking to make a splash are a big part of the continued belief that states go to war over water.
Holdren’s experience suggests scientists should take proactive steps, such as setting up supporting web pages when the piece is published, and including the URL as part of their byline. This annotated or fully referenced and extended online version may help temper some of the outrage in cases like this. Jeff Sachs’ “Sustainable Developments” column in Scientific American, Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog, and Nick Kristof’s New York Times column and “On the Ground” blog commonly include links to more extensive discussions.
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Update: Conflict in Ossetia
›August 13, 2008 // By Daniel GleickThe New York Times reports that Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev has “ordered a halt to his country’s military operation in Georgia”; however, “he did not say that troops were pulling out and he insisted that Russian forces were still authorized to fire on enemies in South Ossetia.” Despite the ceasefire, a New York Times reporter said bombing continued.
As posted last week in the New Security Beat, the conflict in Ossetia has significant natural resources elements, as the region is rich in timber, manganese, iron ore, and copper and coal deposits. In a Foreign Affairs article last winter (which to a large extent predicted the current conflict), Nixon Center President Dimitri K. Simes pointed out that high energy prices have granted Russia newfound economic and political independence: “Energy exports finance about 30 percent of the Kremlin’s budget”—and this was at $61 per barrel.
By positioning itself as the major energy supplier to Europe, Russia is attempting to regain much of its sphere of influence. However, Georgia maintains oil and gas pipelines to Europe that offer alternatives to the Russian supplies. Some of these, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, were built at the strong urging of the United States.
Reuters reports that Georgia “accused Russia of bombing its fuel lines on Tuesday.” However, while British Petroleum “has closed two oil and gas pipelines [including BTC] running from its Caspian Sea fields through Georgia,” according to inspections “neither has been damaged by recent fighting in the country.”
The BTC pipeline is “the only major conduit for Central Asian resources not under Russian control,” notes The Telegraph, which quotes the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Russia’s motivation: “They need control of energy routes.”
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House Energy Subcommittee Debates Economic, Human, Security Costs of Climate Change
›June 30, 2008 // By Rachel WeisshaarThe cost of taking no action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be “equivalent to a 3.6% loss of the U.S. GDP in 2100,” said Sir Nicholas Stern in his written testimony to the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality last week (archived webcast). “We should emphasize, however, that there are many likely, larger, and deeply damaging, effects which will occur after 2100 and these calculations take no account of the effects on the USA of the damages and devastation which occur outside the USA.”
Stern, who authored the 2006 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, discussed the non-economic costs of climate change, as well. Extreme climate change scenarios “involve movements of population, and we know that movement of population means not only the hardship around the movements themselves, but also conflict,” he said at the hearing.
Sherri Goodman, general counsel of the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) Corporation, asserted the interdependence of climate change, national security, and energy dependence. “Numerous DoD studies have concluded that high fuel demand by combat forces detracts from combat capability, makes our forces more vulnerable, diverts combat assets from offense to supply line protection, and increases operating costs,” said Goodman’s testimony.
Energy is also a security issue at home. “The Defense Department is almost completely dependent on electricity from the national grid to power critical missions at fixed installations,” explained Goodman. “The national electric grid is fragile and can be easily disrupted, as happened in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, caused by trees falling onto power lines in Ohio. It affected 50 million people in eight states and Canada, took days to restore and caused a financial loss in the U.S. estimated to be between $4 billion and $10 billion. As extreme weather events become more common [due to climate change], so do the threats to our national electricity supply.”
A day earlier, two other House committees discussed the newly completed—and still classified—National Intelligence Assessment on the U.S. national security implications of climate change. -
Scarcity and Abundance Collide in the Niger Delta
›May 29, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiThe Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has claimed responsibility for a May 26 night attack on a Shell oil facility. A government spokesman confirmed the explosion, suggesting “that explosives might have been used by miscreants.” Through its website, MEND claims that 11 deaths resulted from the blast, although officials deny that anyone was hurt. The Niger Delta has long been plagued by violence, including the January 2006 kidnapping of four Shell workers by MEND and the October 1998 explosion that killed more than 1,000 people in Jesse, Nigeria. These and other episodes of violence—including pipeline sabotaging and kidnapping—have regularly disrupted the Niger Delta. Anger over increased economic marginalization—in 2006, Nigeria ranked 159th out of 177 countries on the UN Human Development Index—distrust of the national government, and a lack of effective avenues of recourse for those left behind by Nigeria’s oil boom have driven violent protests against the state and international oil corporations. Moreover, local people, many of whom live on less than $1 per day, sometimes cut holes in the pipes to siphon oil, which can inadvertently cause dangerous explosions.
Earlier this month, more than 100 people were killed when a construction vehicle struck an oil pipeline in Nigeria, reports the Nigerian Red Cross. Reports indicate that this event was an accident, but the explosion nevertheless prompted the editorial board of the Abuja-based newspaper Leadership to suggest that “all those who live near oil pipelines should consider relocating to safer places,” and to condemn the “wealth-seeking, greedy soldiers and policemen who are supposed to protect us and our property from criminals.”
For more on the politics and conflict surrounding oil in Nigeria, see this article by Kenneth Omeje, a research fellow at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, which examines Nigeria’s experience with oil extraction, the paradoxical circumstance of simultaneous resource scarcity and abundance, and the violent outbursts spawned by perceived government mismanagement of the country’s oil reserves. -
Environmental Security Heats Up ISA 2008
›May 9, 2008 // By Meaghan ParkerAfter a few years left out in the cold, environmental security came home to a warm welcome at this year’s International Studies Association conference in San Francisco, drawing large crowds to many star-studded panels. Water, climate, energy, and AFRICOM were hot topics, and the military/intelligence communities were out in force. Many of the publishers indicated they were seeking to acquire titles or journals on environmental security, given the scarcity of books on the topic currently in the works. Demographic security even got a few shout-outs from well-placed supporters.
Climate change and energy security panels dominated the program. Chaired by the National Intelligence Council’s Mathew Burrows, “Militarization of Energy Security” featured contributors to the edited volume forthcoming from Daniel Moran and James Russell of the Naval Postgraduate School—including original resource conflict gadfly Michael Klare, who claimed that lack of oil itself isn’t the problem, but that efforts to extract less accessible supplies would provoke violence in places like Nigeria, Venezuela, and Siberia. The intense discussion contrasted the approaches of China and the United States to ensuring energy security; Moran pointed out that China sent “bankers and oilmen” into Africa, whereas the United States created AFRICOM. “If the Chinese had created a military command in Africa, there wouldn’t be a dry seat in the Pentagon,” he added. David Hamon of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency observed that BP has a “security regime to protect their interests that would make a military blush.”
At “Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and Armed Conflict,” Clionadh Radleigh put the kibosh on the fearmongering predictions of waves of transnational “environmental refugees.” Similarly, Halvard Buhaug explored weaknesses in the reported links between climate change and conflict, calling for more rigorous research on this currently trendy topic. Christian Webersik’s research found links between negative rainfall and higher incidences of conflict in Somalia and Sudan, but he cautioned against using this relationship to predict climate-induced conflict.
A flood of panels on water, conflict, and cooperation took advantage of the conference’s West Coast location to call on water world heavies Aaron Wolf and Peter Gleick, who participated in a lively standing room-only roundtable chaired by ECSP’s Geoff Dabelko. Despite the obvious interest in the topic, publishers in the exhibit hall didn’t have much to offer on water and security.
AFRICOM drew some heat, especially from a panel of educators from military academies who explored peace parks and other “small-ball” approaches to conflict prevention. All the panelists were generally supportive of AFRICOM’s efforts to integrate nontraditional development work into the military’s portfolio—which, as discussant and retired U.S. Army Col. Maxie McFarland pointed out, it is already doing “by default” in Iraq and Afghanistan. McFarland cautioned, however, that “just because the Army can do it, doesn’t mean you want them to do it.” Air War College Professor Stephen Burgess predicted that the groundswell of climate change awareness would push the next president to include it in his or her National Security Strategy.
Rich Cincotta’s demographic security panel attracted significant interest—no small feat on the last day. The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Thomas Mahnken said that demographic trends and shocks are of “great interest to us in the government”—particularly forecasting that could identify what countries or regions the DoD should be worried about—particularly China and India (good thing demographer Jennifer Sciubba is on the case in his office).
The emphasis on prediction and forecasting stood out from the general trend of ISA panels, which mostly focus on analysis of current or past events. Mathew Burrows called for government and academia to “push the frontiers” on forecasting even further—particularly on the impacts of food security, water shortages, and environmentally induced migration.
Despite the warm, fuzzy feelings for environmental security, there were few panels devoted to general natural resource conflict, and none to post-conflict environmental peacebuilding (Michael Beevers contributed one of the few papers to explicitly address the topic).
What’ll be next year’s hot topics? Submit your proposals by May 30 for the 2009 ISA Annual Conference in New York City.
To download any of the papers mentioned above, visit the ISA’s online paper archive.
For more on ECSP at ISA, see “Environmental Security Is Hot Topic at the 2008 International Studies Association Conference.” -
Weekly Reading
›The Population Reference Bureau recently published several new resources on global family planning, including a data sheet on worldwide family planning and an article by James Gribble examining trends and patterns in family planning in West Africa. Gribble also recently co-authored an article on the successes and failures of Peru’s family planning policy, particularly among the poor.
An article published in Human Dimensions of Wildlife (subscription required) found that crop destruction by wildlife in three villages in northeastern Tanzania significantly reduced both food security and household income. The article recommends implementing several incentives—including microcredit for non-agricultural activities—for conservation.
A report from the Center for International and Strategic Studies’ Global Strategy Institute examines the future of water and energy in an increasingly urbanized Asia, with a particular focus on China.
The International Institute for Sustainable Development released a summary of the proceedings at the first African Water Week, which took place March 26-28, 2008. -
Rising Food Prices Destabilizing Dozens of Countries
›March 12, 2008 // By Sonia SchmanskiRising prices for staple crops like rice, wheat, and corn—driven by growing demand, poor harvests in some regions, the high price of oil, and the conversion of many crops to biofuel—have spurred recent protests in Mexico, Morocco, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Senegal, where people are becoming unable to afford to feed themselves and their families. Last week, the European Union announced its largest food aid package ever, dedicating $243 million to Africa, Asia, and the
Last month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that skyrocketing food prices have caused 36 countries to need external food assistance, and noted that many of these countries have seen their food shortage difficulties exacerbated by extreme weather or violent conflict. Earlier this month, the FAO released a report showing that climate change will likely diminish agricultural output in the Middle East and North Africa. (Visit the FAO’s World Food Situation Portal for more valuable data and reports on food scarcity.)
Some developing countries have found it more economical to import food than produce their own, which has simultaneously decreased global food supply and increased demand. In addition, when developing countries like China and India do achieve greater prosperity, this generally leads to higher consumption of meat and dairy products, which require more grain—and eight times more land—to produce than vegetables and staples.
Experts and leaders agree that boosting agricultural production should be a top international priority. “It is clear,” said John Beddington, the British government’s chief scientific adviser, “that science and research to increase the efficiency of agricultural production per unit of land is critical.” In addition, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently suggested that a “Green Revolution” in Africa could help increase efficiency and food security. (Read more on prospects for a Green Revolution in Africa here.)
Speaking last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, World Bank President Robert Zoellick called hunger and malnutrition “the forgotten Millennium Development Goal” and argued that “increased food prices and their threat—not only to people but also to political stability—have made it a matter of urgency to draw the attention it needs.”
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Niger Delta Violence Requires Comprehensive Solution, Says Nigerian Senator
›February 21, 2008 // By Rachel WeisshaarNigerian Senator David Dafinone argued yesterday that the Nigerian government should abandon plans to allocate 444.6 billion Nigerian nairas in the 2008 budget to security in the conflict-ravaged Niger Delta. “Dedicating such huge amount to policing the Niger Delta will be counter productive because resentment of the state and the oil companies by the people will continue to deepen,” said Dafinone, who hails from the Delta. “There is urgent need to reorder the political, social and economic development of the Niger Delta,” he continued. “The root cause of the crisis in the region remains the denial of the peoples’ right to land and its content.”
The University of Bradford’s Kenneth Omeje calls for international efforts to hold the oil industry to standards of social and environmental responsibility and disarm and demobilize all Niger Delta militias and anti-oil combatants. But he emphasizes that “it will require a great deal of international pressure not only to compel the state to participate in a consequential roundtable with oil-bearing communities, but also to secure its commitment to far-reaching, proactive concessions that help meet the aspirations of the Niger Delta’s people.”
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