tags: global warming, human warfare, politics
Did you know that there is a positive correlation between cold temperatures and warfare? According to a study recently carried out by David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong and colleagues, human warfare increases as temperatures plunge.
Zhang's team looked at the frequency of warfare in eastern China during the previous thousand years and compared it with paleoclimate data. They found that there were 899 wars in eastern China between the years 1000 and 1911 and that nearly all peaks in warfare and dynastic changes coincided with cold phases.
Zhang and his colleagues wrote;
Our methodological framework reveals a near perfect match between high war frequencies and the cold phases, doubled war ratios in cold phases, and significant correlation between frequency of occurrences of warfare and temperature variation in phase, decadal and annual scales in the last millennium.
These are unlikely to be fortuitous. This study also finds that during cold phases, reduced critical resources could not support the size of population achieved during the previous warm period. People of different social groupings (class, tribe, state) in agrarian society had to compete for shrinking resources (land and food in particular) during cold phases, and consequently, war-peace cycles closely followed temperature variations during the past millennium.
This study was published in April 21st issue of Human Ecology.
Okay, so if these data are valid, it seems possible that global warming could actually decrease human warfare (even though global warming is destroying everything else that matters). If so, this might help explain why the Bushies vehemently deny global warming .. it doesn't fit with their pro-warfare agenda.
Cited story.
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Well they say that cold weather reduced food resources and this probably led to the increase in wars.
If global climate change results in lower crop yields and reduced natural sources of potable water (likely outcomes) it should lead to lots of wars as well.
So global climate change would fit well with a pro increased military spending and/or war agenda.
It is published here http://www.springerlink.com/content/25397734x6n1m038/?p=82e029b6926c463…
I don't have access to this journal.
I thought it was the other way around. Lots of people have been blaming the conflict in Darfur and the problems with water shortages and drought on global warming.
Finding that war increases during cold phases does not imply that the upcoming warm phase, which will soon be warmer than any thing past civilizations have been exposed to , will reduce war.
Much the contrary - the increase in war is most likely a result of a reduction in crucial resources, such as food.
So far, the projections of global warming's likely impacts on food crops are nearly all negative.
Chris' et al. - I've got access (through university, and OpenVPN to connect from home), so email me if you want a copy (you can always contact me through my blog!).
Visually the correlation isn't perfect, but it looks good enough to conclude that climate is having an effect. I'll have to look at the paper in more detail later.
Bob
Very cold weather leads to reduced resources (food) this leads to conflict.
Very hot weather leads to reduced resources (food & water) this leads to conflict.
What they appear to have identified is the cause of the reduction in resources in the period being investigated.
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The Darfur conflict is, from my understanding, a resource battle mixed with racism (nominal Arabs v Black Africans) as well as the old battle between settled agrarians and hunter gatherers.
Unlike the previous wars in the South and East of Sudan, religion doesn't seem to be involved this time as both sides are nominally from the same muslim sect, so I've been told.