Climate change triggers bloodshed

Posted on October 4, 2007
Filed Under All, Politics, Green Tech |

Discover Magazine Newsletter links to this article about a study conducted by Hong Kong University Earth scientist David Zhang and colleagues. Zhang’s study of more than 900 years of conflict in eastern China has tested the hypothesis that cold spells fuel the social instability that leads to war.

They consulted a multivolume compendium, The Tabulation of Wars in Ancient China, which records wars in China between 800 B.C. and A.D. 1911. They focused on the 899 wars that took place between the years 1000 and 1911 in densely populated eastern China.

Zhang and his colleagues identified six major cycles of warm and cold phases from 1000 to 1911. The team then tabulated the frequency of wars and grouped them into three classes: very high (more than 30 wars per decade), high (15 to 30 wars per decade), and low (fewer than 15 wars per decade.) All four decades of “very high” warfare, as well as most periods of “high” conflict, coincided with cold phases.

‘Zhang believes his work has relevance for a warming world. Global temperatures are expected to rise faster and faster in the future, and our expanded population may be unable to adapt to the ecological changes. “Animals can adapt to climate change, mainly by relying on migration, depopulation—which consists of starvation and cannibalism—and dietary change,” he explains. “Human beings have more adaptive choices and social mechanisms, such as birth control, trade, and scientific innovation. Some of these social mechanisms are good for humanity, and some are bad, such as war. The war is just like the cannibalism of animals.” ‘

We made mention of the potential for climate change and conflict in an earlier post…

Comments

2 Responses to “Climate change triggers bloodshed”

  1. pauldwaite on October 5th, 2007 2:03 am

    Fewer than 15 wars per decade is low? Yikes.

  2. cg on October 5th, 2007 12:21 pm

    Unrest among China’s agrarian populations is, apparently, an ancient theme. I read that there are normally something like 30,000 annual rural protests in China that require a police action of some sort.

    Since China’s recent growth spurt has given rise to land-grabs by would-be industrialists, and hugely widened the income gap between farmers and urban workers, that number has recently risen to 70,000 protests… the numbers can be confounding when dealing with 1.3 billion people…

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