Tropic of Chaos_ Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence - Christian Parenti [119]
3 See “About Science and Impacts,” Pew Center on Global Climate Change, www.pewclimate.org/science-impacts/about.
4 The IPCC has rather famously lowered its projected sea level rises between its third and fourth assessment reports. But the fourth assessment’s lower range of projected rises has been roundly attacked as optimistic because they do not take into account new evidence of very rapid melting in Greenland and Antarctica. New Scientist summed up the dilemma of projecting sea level rises as follows: “Because modeling how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will react to rising temperatures is fiendishly complicated, the IPCC did not include either in its estimate. It’s no small omission: the Greenland ice cap, the smaller and so far less stable of the two, holds enough water that if it all melted, it would raise sea levels by 6 metres on average across the globe.” The same piece then goes on to quote Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, saying, “As a result of the acceleration of outlet glaciers over large regions, the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are already contributing more and faster to sea level rise than anticipated. . . . If this trend continues, we are likely to witness sea level rise 1 metre or more by year 2100.” See Catherine Brahic, “Sea Level Rise Could Bust IPCC Estimate,” New Scientist (March 2009).
5 John Vidal, “Global Warming Causes 300,000 Deaths a Year,” Guardian, May 29, 2009.
6 Jianjun Yin et al. “Model Projections of Rapid Sea-Level Rise on the Northeast Coast of the United States,” Nature Geoscience 2 (March 15, 2009): 262–266. In 2007 the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, based on data that was already several years dated upon publication, projected that neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. In fact, both are losing mass very quickly. From the new data come the new projections.
7 Koko Warner et al., “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement,” Earth Institute of Columbia University, May 2009, http://ciesin.columbia.edu/documents/clim-migr-report-june09_media.pdf.
8 Kristina Stefanova, “Rising Sea Levels in Pacific Create Wave of Migrants,” Washington Times, April 19, 2009.
9 Quoted in Susan George, “Globalisation and War” (paper presented at the International Congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, New Delhi, March 10 2008); “Climate Change and Conflict,” International Crisis Group Report, November 2007, www.crisisgroup.org/en/key-issues/climate-change-and-conflict.aspx.
10 Dan Smith and Janani Vivekananda, A Climate of Conflict: The Links Between Climate Change, Peace and War (Stockholm: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Febuary 2008), 7. This publication can be downloaded/ordered from www.sida.se/publications.
11 Statistically, “battle-related deaths” worldwide have declined since World War II and especially since the end of the Cold War—which in the frontline states of the Global South was often quite hot. But other amorphous types of violence linked to social breakdown are spreading. Take the case of El Salvador: twelve years of civil war ended in 1993, but “deaths by homicide in the postwar era at one point surpassed the death rate during the war.” And they remain almost as high today. Or consider Caracas. In the 1970s Venezuela suffered a series of small guerrilla insurgencies; in fact, the young paratrooper Hugo Chavez fought Maoist guerillas around Lake Maricaibo. Today, Venezuela is “at peace,” but the hillside barrios of Caracas are hyperviolent with crime; Caracas is far more violent than during the era of civil war. The Caracas murder rate is about 130 per 100,000. In 2008 a total of 2,415 people were killed and 5,098 others were injured. See, for example, Sara Miller Llana, “Will Venezuela’s Murder Rate Hurt Chávez?” Christian Science Monitor, December 3, 2008; “Highlights: Venezuela Crime, Narcotics Issues 29 Jun–5 Jul 09,