Europeans have been killing each other by the millions throughout recorded history. Apparently this was due to climate change. Whoever could have known?
Denmark’s Defense Minister Gitte Lillelund Bech about the role rising global temperatures will play.
Future national security problems
“Shit Climate change will happen, and that will affect all of us,” Bech said. Already, she said, “climate change is having a big effect on the Arctic region.”
Beyond the challenges for countries like Denmark, Canada and others in the Arctic, she noted that increasingly governments need to think strategically about how they help already-fragile countries facing environmental catastrophes like Pakistan. More than 20 million people were displaced by floods there in July.
“Because you have the flooding, the Pakistani government or society will use all their resources to deal with that — which could create room for extremists,” Bech noted.
From the melting of the Arctic to desertification in Africa, climate change is widely recognized as a threat multiplier. That is, the changes in the hydrologic cycle that will lead to droughts, floods and more severe storms will hit especially hard in areas already suffering from food insecurity, poor infrastructure and unstable regimes.
The past 65 years of rapidly rising CO2 have been remarkably peaceful.