John Rapley - FOREIGN FOCUSLAST WEEKEND, the British newspaper, The Observer, leaked a secret report which revealed that the Pentagon was preparing for a possible collapse of the earth's environment. While the article was not picked up by the American press, it confirmed a less alarmist story already circulating in the American media, about a planning exercise at the Department of Defence.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN
The Pentagon is apparently focusing on global warming. Since the 2001 report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control, most in the scientific community accept both that the planet's mean temperature has risen, and that human activity, in particular the burning of fossil fuels, is at least partly to blame. Nevertheless, the Bush administration dismisses this view. However, its studied indifference to global warming arguably reflects just an extreme version of what is the mainstream view in the US political establishment.
Looking down the road, though, the Pentagon foresees serious problems. Comparing present climatic trends to those in the past, it anticipates that in the decades ahead, global warming could lead to harsher weather patterns, flooding, widespread drought, and rising sea levels. Worse, an interruption in oceanic flows caused by the melting of the polar ice caps could plunge northern regions of the planet into another ice age.
Low lying countries, like Bangladesh, would lose much of their presently habitable land, leading to massive population disruptions. Flooding and drought would destroy crops, causing famines in many poor countries. This would further induce refugees to crowd into cities that are not equipped to absorb them, resulting in widespread anarchy. Dwindling supplies of fresh water could lead to outbreaks of war in water scarce regions such as the Middle East. Indeed, suggest the report's authors, mankind risks returning to the state of war of which Thomas Hobbes once spoke.
CATASTROPHE PREDICTED
Such alarmism is not new, of course. Two centuries ago, Thomas Malthus maintained that, while human populations grew exponentially, food output grew only arithmetically. Sooner or later, he predicted, demand would outstrip supply, and humans would have to fight over a dwindling stock of food. Ever since, some in the environmentalist movement have maintained that rapid population growth would sooner or later produce an environmental catastrophe.
Repeatedly though, the Malthusians have been proved wrong. Population growth slowed while food production, thanks to technological change, took off. Indeed today, as anyone in the farming business will tell you, the problem on the planet is not too little food but too much, as evidenced by declining agricultural prices across the board.
Nevertheless, the new generation of Malthusianism may enjoy something that previous generations did not, and that is a sound grasp of economics. International security experts like Thomas Homer-Dixon, who predicted over a decade ago that the end of the Cold War would give unto an age of low-level, but sometimes intense conflicts over resources, saw the weak logic in the claim that the planet's resources were running out, with the possible exception of water, there is little evidence that they are. Rather, Homer-Dixon reasoned that the widening wealth gap between the rich and poor worlds was depriving those most in need of the technologies that make it possible to exploit resources efficiently, the poor crowded into the slums of the Third World, of access to them.
U.S. GOVERNMENT TAKES HEED
More recently, scientists have added that the problem is not a shortage of supplies, but of sinks, the places where resources are disposed of once they have been used. This is where climate change comes in. At present, it would appear that the burning of fossil fuels has exceeded the atmosphere's absorptive capacity, causing global warming.
The Pentagon constantly plans for all sorts of scenarios, so it would be wrong to suggest that it is now expecting the doomsday scenario to come to pass. Nonetheless, it is a worrying report. It also indicates that the U.S. defence establishment is starting to take on board the warnings of some in the scientific and environmental communities.
Will the U.S. political establishment react with equal concern? To date, I would suggest, the response to global warming in the U.S. has followed something of a pattern. Conservatives blame the poor, as in poor countries, while liberals have themselves photographed hugging trees, then turn their attention elsewhere. This year's election campaign will show if the debate is now gaining a new sense of urgency.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, U.W.I., Mona.
