CSIS National Security Study - Climate Change Could Be The End Of Globalization

[hatrack]

Climate change could bring globalisation to an end by 2040, according to a new report from leading national security experts – with nations turning inwards to save resources as new climate-related conflicts arise. "The Age of Consequences" report, produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the US, predicts that scarcity of resources may "dictate the terms of international relations" for years to come as rich countries could "go through a 30-year process of kicking away from the lifeboat".

Earlier in April, the UN had already concluded that it is the world's poorest regions that are set to suffer most from global warming (EurActiv 10/04/07).

Leon Fuerth, once national security adviser to former Vice President Al Gore and a leading author of the CSIS report, said: "Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalisation as we have known it", with different parts of the world turning inwards to conserve what they need to survive.

The latest forecasts follow an April report from a US military think tank, which made the link between global warming and terrorism and called for climate change policy to become an integral part of national security and defence policies (EurActiv 17/04/07).

EDIT

http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/climate-change-bring-globalisation/article-168188

[kestrel91316]

1. An end to globalization would be a GOOD thing, AFAIAC.

I don't WANT major multinational corporations running things and siphoning money out of everybody's pockets and into their own.

Globalization and corporatism are ANTIDEMOCRATIC at their heart.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Yes and no.

Globalization as it is currently structured is global corporate feudalism, the triumph of fascism. However, the phrase 'kicking away the lifeboat' in the OP needs examination. What I think they mean is that just as we have seen the neocon/neolib consensus in Washington approve the military seizure of the strategic cheap oil reserves in the middle east for our own use as we enter the peak oil crisis, as water scarcity and other resource and climate crisis proliferate, rather than an international 'one world' approach to mitigation it will be a 'king of the hill' approach.

Globalization does not have to be anti-democratic. It is a tragedy of history that it has become just that.

[pscot]

3. The truth is that no one really knows

what impact climate change will have, or how various regions will be affected. There are reputable scientists who are predicting average temperatures 18 degrees higher than today. If that happens we'll all be living in holes in the ground and doing our foraging at night. Whatever we imagine about the future is likely to be wrong, but it's probably safe to say that what's coming will not be an improvement.

[Delphinus]

5. Herein lies the problem:

Whatever we imagine about the future is likely to be wrong, but it's probably safe to say that what's coming will not be an improvement.

How does one make plans, even short-term plans, for living?

[losthills]

4. Globalization is a horrible experiment that deserves to fail

for many reasons, including climate responsibility.

Shipping avocadoes from Chile, or dog food from China makes so little sense that the sooner it ends, the better off we will all be...

[NMDemDist2]

6. exactly! n/t

[bananas]

7. "kicking [the poor] away from the lifeboat"

The DU software deleted the phrase in square brackets.
(for people who didn't follow the link).

[tex-wyo-dem]

8. ah...now that phrase makes more sense...

It didn't make much sense for the wealthy countries to be kicking themselves away from the lifeboat; kicking the poor away, on the other hand, makes perfect sense :sarcasm: Exactly what the neocon vision of social darwinism holds...survival of the wealthiest.

What exactly the future holds for life on earth is largely speculatory, but my sense is it will not be pretty. A generation or two from now people will be looking at our lifestyles in the wealthy countries with anger and discust and wonder how we could have ruined such a beautiful environment that provided and supported so much.

[izquierdista]

9. There will be a shakeup

The countries that will suffer a diminished standard of living will be the ones that are overextended now -- buying energy and natural resources from others because they have used up all of their own. Those countries that can live sustainably on their own resources and adapt to the new weather patterns will do fine. There may even be countries who find themselves coming out ahead. The shorter, milder winter may allow Greenlanders to raise livestock like the Viking settlers did in the Medieval warm period. As usual, the race will be won by those who can adapt quickest.

But it won't be business as usual as all the economic refugees from affected areas look to move someplace more hospitable. People abandoning coastal areas that go from dry land to wetlands will create a class of people ripe for exploitation by people who are high and dry. When the beach house is lost to the sea and the insurance company refused to pay up, previously rich people will ask if they can stay with their hillbilly cousins up in the holler.

In this new realigning, the equivalent of the walled city that the displaced will flock to will be the energy self-sufficient areas. Areas where locally produced food is plentiful and where wind, solar, geothermal, or biomass makes the area a next energy exporter. Areas like Las Vegas and Phoenix will have to shed population until they go down to their carrying capacity. It may well be that the great urbanization of the 20th century will become the great ruralization of the 21st.

[riverdeep]

10. Depends on how severe climate change goes.

If it winds up being, say, 18 degrees hotter as someone suggested, methane will be sure to be released from the oceans furthering the avalanche of warming. There won't be any vegetation at that point so the nations of the world will finally be equal-in death.