The narrow window of opportunity to address climate change makes it imperative that we “remove our heads from the proverbial sand,” writes editor Carolyn Pumphrey in “Global Climate Change: National Security Implications,” released by the U.S. Army War College earlier this month. The report aggregates the presentations given at a 2007 colloquium by the same name in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and features contributions from several authors who have worked recently with ECSP, including Kent Hughes Butts, Joshua Busby, and John T. Ackerman (who has also been a guest contributor to the New Security Beat).

The risks associated with climate change include the spread of disease, severe drought, and coastal flooding, which could lead to decreased agricultural output, mass migration, and other challenges. Pumphrey writes that while social scientists are not in full agreement that violence will result from these developments, conference participants agreed that climate change presents a serious threat, “compounded by a context of rapid population growth, increasing economic appetite, pockets of extreme violence, and global interdependence.” By inflaming latent tensions, climate change will “complicate American foreign policy in a wide variety of ways,” says Pumphrey.

Since the Senate Armed Services Committee called environmental destruction a “growing national security threat” in the late 1990s, some effort has been devoted to crafting a U.S. response, but politicians have hesitated to act on uncertain scientific data, says Pumphrey, arguing additionally that the creeping dangers associated with climate change have only recently begun to captivate the public imagination, and that attempts to spice them up can lead to inaccurate exaggeration. Finally, Pumphrey says, pervasive overconfidence in the ability of “American ingenuity” to outpace emerging dangers has hindered decisive action.

Pumphrey calls for a three-pronged strategy that includes “better intelligence, better science, and better understanding of the relationships between such things as violence, society, and climate change.” She maintains that we must slow the rate of climate change and prepare for unavoidable changes, take action to alleviate international social distress, and prepare to address potential conflicts. And, she notes, this is “a job for everyone,” not just the military.

Growing demand for palm oil is contributing to civil strife in Colombia, argue the authors of “Fuelling Fear: The human cost of biofuels in Colombia,” a report published by U.K. NGO War on Want (video here). Global demand for the crop has doubled in the last decade, largely due to the increasing use of biofuels, and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has made increasing biofuel production one of his administration’s priorities. The United Kingdom is one of the largest consumers of Colombian palm oil, which is also a common ingredient in baked goods and cosmetics. “[I]t is now time to question the role played by the UK government and other investors in propagating further violence and bloodshed against the Afro-Colombian communities,” insists Sue Branford, chair of War on Want, in the preface of the report.

“There is an emerging pattern of displacement and human rights violations against Afro-Colombian communities connected to palm oil cultivation,” states the report. The U.K. is accused of turning a blind eye to the land grabs, forced evictions, and other disturbing impacts palm oil cultivation has had on these communities. War on Want estimates that as much as 70 percent of the population of a mountain range in Nariño, located in the southwest corner of the country, has been forcefully evicted from their lands by paramilitaries since October 2007.

A report commissioned by GTZ, the German government-owned technical assistance agency, examines how it can address the new challenges to development posed by climate change.

In the May/June 2008 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jürgen Scheffran provides an overview of climate-security links.

An article in Time examining population and environmental degradation highlights Robert Engelman’s new book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, presented recently at the Wilson Center.

Jody Williams and Wangari Maathai, who won Nobel Peace Prizes in 1997 and 2004, respectively, recently discussed climate change, environmental degradation, human security, and women’s leadership on Living on Earth.

Rapid population growth “is almost certain to occur in countries least able to sustain it, and that will create a situation that will likely fuel instability and extremism,” warned CIA Director General Michael Hayden in a recent speech at Kansas State University, where he identified demographic change as one of the three global trends most likely to influence world events and challenge American security.

The UN mid-range world population projection for 2050 is 9.2 billion people, an approximately 40 percent increase over today’s population. This population growth, especially in developing and fragile states, may easily overwhelm state capacity. “When basic needs are not met,” explained Hayden, people “could easily be attracted to violence, civil unrest, and extremism.” Such civil unrest can spread across borders, destabilizing regions and impacting both developing and developed countries.

When their governments cannot meet their basic needs, people also often choose to emigrate. A dramatic influx of migrants—legal and illegal—from developing countries to developed ones poses significant challenges for the destination country, as governments must allocate resources for facilitating immigrant assimilation and, in some cases, countering extremism. Many European countries have struggled to integrate Muslim immigrants into their societies.

It’s interesting to note that the estimate of a 40 percent increase in population growth by 2050 is primarily based on the assumption that current levels of funding for family planning services will continue, which is far from certain. Promoting access to family planning has been a proven mechanism in reducing fertility. With growing populations threatening to overwhelm fragile states’ capacity and harm the environment, funding voluntary family planning programs could well be considered an investment in global security.

The authors of “Reassessing HIV Prevention,” an article in the most recent issue of Science, question the assumptions behind current HIV prevention interventions in Africa. The authors challenge the commonly accepted belief that poverty and political instability increase a population’s vulnerability to HIV infection, arguing that it is not supported by the evidence. They point to data demonstrating that “African regions suffering from conflict, genocide, and rape, such as Rwanda, Congo, and Angola, are much less affected by AIDS than peaceful, wealthier, and more literate countries such as Botswana or Swaziland, which have the world’s highest HIV prevalence.”

Studies have shown that civil war and the breakdown of health service delivery result in an increase in preventable deaths—such as those due to malnutrition, diarrhea, and malaria—but perhaps HIV follows a different pattern. Clearly, there is a need for research that compares the spread of HIV/AIDS in politically stable, wealthier African countries with those torn by conflict.

At a 2007 ECSP event on the human cost of war, Dr. Frederick Burkle of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative—who will discuss public health management after natural disasters on June 17—admitted that the direct impact of poverty, inequality, and cultural incompatibilities on the spread of infectious diseases and mortality during complex emergencies is “difficult, if not impossible,” to measure.

Matthew Connelly recently published Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population, a book that has chafed demographers and those working in the family planning sector. If Connelly had foreseen the attention his recounting of the population movement would garner, he might have taken more care to represent more sides of the story. He also might have talked to more living people, especially women, rather than relying so heavily on written archives.

Controversially, Connelly argues that family planning programs in the 20th century were responsible for only 5 percent of the fertility decline experienced during that time. His proof? That fertility levels were already declining before family planning programs began. On page 338, he writes, “Moreover, it could not be shown that even the 5 percent effect was actually caused by such efforts, or whether instead broader socioeconomic or cultural changes explained both the decline in parents’ preference for large families and government willingness to provide them with contraceptives (what economists call the endogeneity problem).”

But examples abound in which fertility declined drastically following the introduction of accessible contraception. For example, after officials in Iran revised the country’s family planning program in the late 1980s, fertility dropped from 5.62 births per woman to just above 2 today. Fertility had been declining since the early 1960s, but at a much slower rate.

In the early 1960s, the fertility rate in Brazil was 6.2. In the years after Planned Parenthood arrived and pharmacies began selling contraceptives, fertility fell to 3.5 births per woman. Today, Brazil’s fertility rate is around 2.35 births per woman, which is close to replacement level.

When women can choose for themselves when to have children, they often choose to have smaller families. The family planning movement has not been perfect, but it has frequently acted courageously to give women the choices they deserve. Its successes should not be overlooked.

Marian Starkey, communications manager at Population Connection, holds a master of science in population and development from the London School of Economics.

“Recent studies – including several by the Chinese Academy of Sciences – have documented a host of serious environmental challenges to the quantity and quality of Tibet’s freshwater reserves, most of them caused by industrial activities. Deforestation has led to large-scale erosion and siltation. Mining, manufacturing, and other human activities are producing record levels of air and water pollution in Tibet. Together, these factors portend future water scarcity that could add to the region’s volatility,” says “China, Tibet, and the strategic power of water,” a new multimedia report by Circle of Blue that includes an interview with ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko on water and environmental peacemaking.

Twenty years after the release of the seminal Brundtland report Our Common Future, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko says that global security still depends on the health of our environment. In “An Uncommon Peace: Environment, Development, and the Global Security Agenda,” an article in the May/June 2008 issue of Environment, he reviews the successes and failures of efforts over the last two decades to integrate environmental concerns into national and international security agendas. “We must draw lessons from environmental security’s history if we are to address the multiple threats—and opportunities—posed by environment-security links today,” says Dabelko.

The Population Reference Bureau’s new series of regional profiles of population, health, and environment issues in the Philippines aims to provide more detailed information on these important aspects of well-being, which vary widely among the country’s 7,100 islands.

The Financial Times reports that the Chinese government is likely to approve a Ministry of Agriculture proposal to encourage Chinese companies to acquire farmland abroad—particularly in Africa and South America—to improve food security. Other countries, including Libya and Saudi Arabia, are exploring similar arrangements.

Burma’s ruling military junta is prohibiting almost all foreign aid workers from entering the country, despite the massive devastation wreaked by Cyclone Nargis last week. The military has also impounded an aid shipment from the UN World Food Program (WFP) and has refused aid from the United States, among other countries. “We are very concerned that this food is not reaching—on day six after a cyclone—the very victims of that cyclone,” said WFP spokesman Paul Risley. The United Nations has suspended aid to Burma pending resolution of the situation.

In a statement released earlier this week, the junta said it would be willing to accept foreign aid, as long as it could distribute the shipments itself. But so far, the statement has not matched up with reality.

The official death toll from the cyclone is approximately 23,000, but experts say this figure could rise significantly, as approximately 40,000 people remain missing. Hundreds of thousands are currently without shelter, food, safe water, or medical care, and international experts agree that the Burmese military does not have the capacity to meet the need. Further compounding the problem, Burma’s military rulers have pressed on with plans to conduct a national constitutional referendum in the less-affected areas tomorrow. Soldiers who could be delivering much-needed aid to survivors have instead been assigned to guard and run polling places. The ruling generals claim that approval of the referendum will set Burma on a gradual path to democracy; nearly all other observers say the vote is a sham. “If you believe in gnomes, trolls and elves, you can believe in this democratic process in Myanmar,” said chief UN human rights investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro last year.

Many of Burma’s citizens are probably too preoccupied with immediate survival right now to be thinking about protesting the junta’s delay of humanitarian relief. But in a few weeks or months, when the situation has (hopefully) stabilized somewhat and word has spread of the holdup of humanitarian aid, one wonders whether the junta will find itself the target of popular outrage. By dragging their feet on international humanitarian relief, Burma’s military rulers seem to be begging for an uprising.