What if it’s not increased scarcity that’s most disruptive about climate change, but variability? Cullen Hendrix explains how new research on water conflict suggests that’s the case in last month’s most popular story.

Much of the time, discussion about climate change is focused on the future – How bad will it be? Will it lead to more conflict? Who will be most vulnerable? But it is in fact a current phenomenon. The climate system is already, for all intents and purposes, irrevocably changed and millions of lives have been changed along with it.

Conflict over environmental resources endangers rural people’s livelihoods and can increase the risk of broader social conflict. Yet joint action to sustain shared resources can also be a powerful means for community building. The Strengthening Aquatic Resource Governance (STARGO) project demonstrated this in three ecoregions: Lake Victoria, with a focus on Uganda; Lake Kariba, with a focus on Zambia; and Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. The results of the project were released at an event in Berlin in early July 2014.

Planned relocation should be a major component of national strategies for disaster risk management, climate change, and development, says a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The report comes as the result of an expert consultation held in Sanremo, Italy, in March of last year amid increased research linking the effects of climate change with migration and displacement.

China faces a dilemma. It is home to 20 percent of the world’s population but only seven percent of the world’s water resources and nine percent of the world’s arable land. At the same time, a rising middle class is demanding more food. Over the last 30 years, China’s meat demand has quadrupled.