This paper provides a summary of the article, "The Environment and Violent Conflict: A Response to Gleditsch's Critique and Some Suggestions for Future Research". Written by Thomas Homer-Dixon and his colleagues at the University of Toronto, the paper serves as a response to Nils Petter Gleditsch's critique of environment, population, and conflict literature in his seminal 1998 article, "Armed Conflict and the Environment: A Critique of the Literature". The paper addresses some of the conceptual and theoretical problems identified by Gleditsch and discusses his selective critique of the literature on the relationship between environmental scarcity and conflict. Also, the article examines underlying methodological issues and addresses Gleditsch's concerns arising from his methodological perspective. The final section of the article looks forward and suggests avenues for future research on the environment-conflict nexus.
The Niger Delta, a sensitive ecosystem rich in biodiversity, has witnessed considerable violence as a result of the tense relationship among oil companies, the Nigerian state, and oil-bearing communities. Environmental damage from the extraction and movement of fossil fuels is a central point of dispute among the parties while the precise extent of ecological damage remains unknown. Drawing on numerous interviews while living and working in the Niger Delta, Doctor Okechukwu Ibeanu analyzes the management of conflicts surrounding petroleum production in the region, including the role of state violence and contradictory perceptions of security held by Delta communities and the oil companies and their partners in the Nigerian federal government.
In the field of environmental security literature, there is a tendency to criticize the work of Thomas Homer-Dixon. Yet, research efforts that seek to improve upon Homer-Dixon's work have not produced models with more explanatory power or new insights. This paper reviews the article by Indra de Soysa and Nils Petter Gleditsch entitled "To Cultivate Peace: Agriculture in a World of Conflict" and examines its feasibility and similarity with the work of Homer-Dixon. In the article by de Soysa and Gleditsch, they argue that a lack of physical, human, and social capital (poverty) reduces agricultural production, which often leads to violent conflict. Their theory is interesting; however, a careful analysis of the basic causal process reveals that it covers the same territory previously covered by Homer-Dixon. Overall, it is noted that de Soysa and Gleditsch's article has not been a very productive approach to improving the understanding of the complex interaction between environmental scarcities and social systems.
Infectious diseases are a leading cause of death, accounting for a quarter to a third of all deaths worldwide. The spread of infectious diseases results from both human behavior such as lifestyle choices, land-use patterns, increased trade and travel, and inappropriate use of antibiotic drugs, as well as mutations in pathogens. These excerpts from a January 2000 National Intelligence Estimate highlight the rising global health threat of new and reemerging infectious diseases. The National Intelligence Council argues that the infectious disease threat will complicate US and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger US citizens at home and abroad, threaten US armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the US has significant interests, according to the report.
This paper comments on the new report "Environment and Security in an International Context", by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS). Overall, the author finds the new CCMS report on environment and security very lucid and well organized. It asks several explicit questions related to the definition of environmental security and how to model it, and the kind of information that would be useful to policymakers, and the kind of responses that are available. In addition, the report addresses the question of complexity very directly, unlike many other policy documents. However, the report introduces some theoretical problems in which the author examines in detail.
