As some of you know, I am really upset that Gore got the Nobel Peace Prize. Mainly because work on global warming has nothing to do with peace. The link is tenuous at best. This economist article makes some good points.
"IF THE Nobel Peace Prize were awarded for making the world a more peaceful place, then this year’s winners—Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—would be a bizarre choice. But two out of the previous three peace prizes went to people and organisations who had nothing to do with peace.
Evidently the committee has decided to redefine the award as the Nobel Prize for Making the World a Better Place in Some Unspecified Way."
Evidently the committee has decided to redefine the award as the Nobel Prize for Making the World a Better Place in Some Unspecified Way."
The New York Times notes, "there will be skeptics who ask what the Peace Prize has to do with global warming. The committee answered that unhesitatingly with its warning that climate change, if unchecked, could unleash massive migrations, violent competitions for resources and, ultimately, threaten the “security of mankind.”
I don't really appreciate being label a skeptic. I am an empiricist and there is little to no evidence of what the Nobel prize committee claims will occur. Resource wars have been rare to non-existent throughout international history. Migrations have not lead to widespread conflict, even refugee movements (although they are obviously harmful to the well being of peoples). I fail to see how the security of mankind is threatened through an increase in violence by global warming. Global warming is clearly an important problem, but it is a peace/war problem?
I don't really appreciate being label a skeptic. I am an empiricist and there is little to no evidence of what the Nobel prize committee claims will occur. Resource wars have been rare to non-existent throughout international history. Migrations have not lead to widespread conflict, even refugee movements (although they are obviously harmful to the well being of peoples). I fail to see how the security of mankind is threatened through an increase in violence by global warming. Global warming is clearly an important problem, but it is a peace/war problem?
3 comments:
Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote about this in several books and articles - in ISQ I believe. Whatever you may think of this view, academics have been writing about environment and conflict...
And they have been writing for years and found weak to no empirical results. A recent book by Diehl and Gleditsch that reviews the field says as much. Homer-Dixon himself cannot answer the question when asked. He cites a theory of how climate change can affect the system, but can posit not causal linkage between systemic catastrophe and dyadic conflict.
Gee, i wish i would have read this before taking the 284 midterm.
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