Climate – conflict link debunked: Professor: ‘Little evidence to suggest that the conflict…is in any way correlated to climate change’

Andrew Montford (now Deputy Director of GWPF) has a report on the talk.

The talk is about 35 minutes long and is followed by questions and discussion.

Near the beginning she gives her conclusion:

“There is very little evidence to suggest that the conflict and protest patterns that we see across developing countries is in any way correlated to climate change.”

A bit later she says that there is a widespread assumption that conflict occurs naturally under adverse weather conditions, but in fact the opposite occurs – cooperation is far more likely in difficult conditions. But cooperation doesn’t make headline news, so we don’t hear about it in the media.

For similar reasons, I think it is unlikely that the Guardian or the BBC will report on Prof Raleigh’s lecture.

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‘Climate Violence?’ with Prof Clionadh Raleigh



Recent research purports that climate change is creating conflict, and leads to unchecked migration. But three distinct flaws characterize such research efforts; they often ask the wrong questions, present poor evidence, and remove references to other, more likely factors that cause conflict. It often gets translated into a perception that poor people act violently for ‘natural’ reasons, or are spurred by physical hazards. We all know that high climate vulnerability and conflict co-occur in the same general regions, but we know far less about what does shape the power and competition dynamics at the local level. Basically, who are the winners and losers of environmental change?

The reality from local research is that far more cooperation is occurring at the local level to mitigate and adapt to environmental challenges; and that a tremendous amount of development money is being directed towards adaptation and risk management. This changes the local calculus for violence. As a result, conflict, when and where it does occur, is often between the ‘winners’ from climate change, development and transitions to democracy.

Join in with twitter using hashtag #natureconflict


About the speaker

Prof Clionadh RaleighProfessor Clionadh Raleigh is a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sussex. She previously served as a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College, Dublin and an external researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). She is a political geographer, and her work is focused mainly on conflict, governance, and the social consequences of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa.

Professor Raleigh directs the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project,

Nation Mag: CO2 called the ‘other poison gas killing Syrians’ – Declares CO2 ‘a far more deadly gas’ than nerve agent Sarin gas

Full The Nation article here: 

By JUAN COLE – Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan ( [email protected])

The gas attack in Syria on April 4 consumed the world’s attention and galvanized the Trump White House, leading to the launch of 59 cruise missiles on a small airport from which the regime of Bashar al-Assad has been bombing the fundamentalist rebels in Idlib province. The pictures of suffering children, Trump said, had touched him. Yet the president and most of his party are committed to increasing the daily release of hundreds of thousands of tons of a far more deadly gas—carbon dioxide. Climate scientist James Hansen has described our current emissions as like setting off 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs each day, every day of the year.

The Syrian civil war has left more than 400,000 people dead, among them graveyards full of children and innocent noncombatants. About half the country’s 23 million people have been left homeless, and of those, 4 million have been driven abroad (some of them contributing to Europe’s refugee crisis and its consequent rightward political shift). The war occurred for many complex reasons, including social and political ones. The severest drought in recorded modern Syrian history in 2007–10, however, made its contribution.

The mega-drought drove 1.5 million farmers and farmworkers off the land to the seedy bidonvilles ringing cities such as Homs and Hama. In the northeast, 70 percent of the farm livestock died in those years. These displaced and dispossessed day laborers, who seldom found remunerative new work in Syria’s stagnant urban economy, joined in the demonstrations against the regime. Some were later drawn into the civil war as militiamen. Others in the end fled their country.

Of course, Syria has had milder periodic droughts all through history. Moreover, some countries in the region, such as Israel, have been much better at water management than the decrepit Baath state in Syria. It matters how such crises are handled. A team of scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, however, found no natural explanation for how rapidly Syria has been drying out over the past century or for the withering severity of the latest drought. Human-caused climate change, which has raised the temperature of the planet

Venezuela Blames ‘Climate Change’ after Its Troops Invade Colombia – Border blurred by ‘constantly changing direction of a river’

TODAY VENEZUELA – Venezuela tried to downplay its illegal entry of troops into Colombia this week by claiming the constantly changing direction of a river near the border accidentally led the soldiers beyond their jurisdiction.

Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said the Venezuelan soldiers entered Colombia’s eastern department of Arauca as a result of the Arauca River, which she said is constantly changing its flow and direction.

‘March for Science’ Group Laments Trump’s Bombing Of ‘Marginalized’ ISIS Fighters

http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/13/march-for-science-group-laments-trumps-bombing-of-marginalized-isis-fighters/

By MICHAEL BASTASCH

The organization behind the “March for Science” tweeted the Trump administration’s bombing Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan is “an example of how science is weaponized against marginalized people.”

The march’s Twitter account sent out the tweet lamenting the bombing in reply to a post by activist Zellie Imani with the Black Liberation Collective — a group of students dedicated to “bringing about freedom and liberation for all Black people.”

The “March for Science” is being organized by activist scientists and environmentalists opposed to the Trump administration’s policies and proposed cuts to federal agencies. The march is planned for D.C. on Earth Day April 22.

March organizers eventually deleted the tweet, but not before meteorologist Ryan Maue captured screenshots.

 

The U.S. military for the first time dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State, or ISIS, targets in Afghanistan Thursday.…

Al Gore Adds Brexit To The ‘Stupid Things Blamed on Climate Change’ List

Perhaps it’s because most of the calamities predicted in the first movie didn’t happen, hurricanes didn’t increase in frequency and strength, polar ice caps didn’t melt, NY and other coastal cities aren’t underwater,   Mt. Kilimanjaro still is snow-capped, tornadoes aren’t increasing in frequency and strength, the arctic isn’t melting, the Antarctic ice extent is growing, oh and the polar bear population is doing very well thank you. So former VP Al Gore wants to try another movie. He didn’t however take my suggestion and call the movie, “More Crap That Wont Happen.” The inventor of the internet did come up with something new and creative, he blamed Brexit on Climate Change, so it gets added to the “Stupid things blamed on climate change” list.

His latest theory is that climate change caused the British Brexit vote:

“One of the lines of investigation [scientists] have been pursuing has led them to the conclusion that significant areas of the Middle East and North Africa are in danger of becoming uninhabitable

 

“And, just a taste of this, to link it to some of the events that the UK and European Union are going through – think for a moment about what happened in Syria.

On the bright side, Gore’s claim that Brexit was caused by climate change becomes #64 on

“The Official Lid List Of Stupid Things Blamed on Climate Change:”

  1. Arab spring
  2. Incredible shrinking sheep,
  3. Destruction of Afghan poppies 
  4. Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean
  5. Surge in fatal shark attacks
  6. Boy Scout tornado deaths,
  7. Severe acne,
  8. Global conflict,
  9. Beer tasting bad
  10. Better Beer
  11. Suicide of farmers in Australia,
  12. End of the American Dream
  13. Bigger tuna fish,
  14. Fish shrinkage
  15. Longer days,
  16. Shorter days,
  17. Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden,
  18. Cow infertility,
  19. UFO sightings in the UK,
  20. Shortage of Hookers in UK
  21. Rise in insurance premiums,
  22. Heroin addiction
  23. Bear attacks in Japan 
  24. Frigid Cold Winters in Great Britain
  25. Cancer
  26. Death from heart disease, diabetes, stroke, respiratory disease and even accidents,
  27. Homicide, suicide
  28. Coffee from Uganda
  29. Doggie Depression
  30. Water -borne disease outbreaks
  31. Bad relations with Russia 
  32. Decline of Circumcision in Africa
  33. Heavier, wetter snowstorms treacherous for travel and ambulation, 
  34. Lyme disease, swarms of allergy-inducing, stinging insects, along with
    mosquitoes and devastating pine bark beetle infestations and the spread
    of forest and crop

Climate change helped cause Brexit, says Al Gore

By Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent

Brexit was caused in part by climate change, former US Vice-President Al Gore has said, warning that extreme weather is creating political instability “the world will find extremely difficult to deal with”.

Mr Gore, speaking at an event in which he previewed a sequel to his landmark 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, said the “principal” cause of the Syrian Civil War had been the worst drought in 900 years, which forced 1.5 million people to move from the countryside to the cities.

There they met a similar number of Iraqis who had fled the conflict in their homeland, creating powder keg conditions that Syrian government officials privately feared would explode.

The resulting war brought more refugees into Europe, causing political instability and helping convince some in the UK to vote to leave the European Union.

One of the most controversial Leave campaign posters showed a queue of refugees stretching into the distance with the caption “Breaking point: The EU has failed us all”. The then-Chancellor, George Osborne, described the poster as “disgusting and vile” and, like others who explicitly compared it to Nazi propaganda, said it had “echoes of literature used in the 1930s”.

Mr Gore, whose new film An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is due out in the UK in August, told an audience at the Advertising Week Europe event in London: “This collision between the power of industrial civilisation and the surprising fragility of the Earth’s ecosystem now poses a great danger that could even threaten the future of human civilisation itself.…

Sen. Inhofe says environmentalist policies undermine US economy and national security

By KEVIN MOONEY, CONTRIBUTOR • 3/23/17 2:19 PM

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has “some good news” for Americans who have been burdened by environmental regulations and the dubious scientific findings that have been used to justify those regulations.

“Obama’s war on fossil fuels is temporarily over,” he said during a video presentation this morning addressing scientists, economists, engineers, and policy experts who are taking part in the Heartland Institute’s 12th annual International Conference on Climate Change. Since 2008, the Chicago-based free market think tank has brought together more than 4,000 people from across the globe to participate in the conferences.

President Trump’s victory, combined with Republican majorities in Congress and in statehouses across the country, strongly suggests that most Americans are not beguiled by alarmist theories on global warming, top officials with Heartland have argued. Inhofe, who is one of the leading climate skeptics in Congress, drove this point home during his presentation. But at the same time, he also urged conference participants to “remain vigilant” in anticipation of coming political battles.

“The outlook for environmental activists and climate change alarmists is grim,” he said. “With significant losses in the White House, and Congress and the Supreme Court, and a persistently skeptical public, their political leverage and relevance has dwindled.”

Even so, Inhofe warned, that “liberal extremists are not going to give up.” During Obama’s eight years in office, the former president “built a culture of radical alarmists,” who will “be back,” Inhofe said.

America’s economic and national security posture deteriorated significantly under Obama as a result of climate change policies that absorbed vital resources that could have been better invested, Inhofe told the conference.

“Every administrative entity under Obama was forced to embrace climate change as a top priority and it was used as a convenient sounding board,” Inhofe said. “We’ve seen this with agencies such as the Department of Defense diverting resources away from their core responsibility of defending America.” Inhofe also quoted Obama as saying that “climate change is a greater threat than terrorism.”…

Media claim: ‘President Trump, Military Split on Climate Change’

A nondescript metal box at the end of an unremarkable pier in Norfolk, Va. is one key to why the U.S. Navy is concerned about climate change.

For nine decades, the Sewells Point tide gauge or its ancestors have been recording the sea level off Pier 6 at Naval Station Norfolk.

The story it tells is clear. Between naturally sinking land and global warming driven sea level rise, the water is a half-meter higher than it was at the beginning of the last century.

That’s creating problems at the world’s largest naval base.

In rough weather, damaging surf slams against electrical, water and steam lines under the piers where the Navy docks its Atlantic fleet. High waves can keep sailors from getting to the ships. Even getting on base is getting harder as “nuisance flooding” becomes a regular problem, cutting off roads around the city of Norfolk.

“It’s not going to stop us from accomplishing our mission. We’re the military. We’ll figure it out,” said Capt. Dean VanderLey, commanding officer of Naval Facilities Engineering Command for the Mid-Atlantic region. “But it just makes things more difficult.”

“The higher the sea level gets, the more we’re going to have to deal with that,” he adds. “I don’t think we fully understand the scope of the problem. And we definitely don’t fully understand the solution.”

Hoax vs. threat multiplier

The commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump, has called global warming a hoax, although he now says there is “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change.

The Pentagon, on the other hand, takes the risks of climate change seriously.

Rising seas threaten coastal installations. Severe storms can cut off supply routes. Extreme heat limits training.

“The military has seen climate change as a problem since 2003, if not earlier,” says retired Army Gen. Gerry Galloway, now with the Center for Climate and Security.

National security threats from climate change are included in eight defense and intelligence documents published before President Obama took office, according to the center.…

Yet another study finds: ‘Cooling is associated with increased conflict’ — Not warming

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23033

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23033Study published in the January issue of National Bureau of Economic Research.

Winter is Coming: The Long-Run Effects of Climate Change on Conflict, 1400-1900

Murat Iyigun, Nathan Nunn, Nancy Qian

NBER Working Paper No. 23033
Issued in January 2017
NBER Program(s):   DEV   EEE   POL

We investigate the long-run effects of cooling on conflict. We construct a geo-referenced and digitized database of conflicts in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East from 1400-1900, which we merge with historical temperature data. We show that cooling is associated with increased conflict. When we allow the effects of cooling over a fifty-year period to depend on the extent of cooling during the preceding period, the effect of cooling on conflict is larger in locations that experienced earlier cooling. We interpret this as evidence that the adverse effects of climate change intensify with its duration.

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Machine-readable bibliographic record – MARC, RIS, BibTeX

Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w23033

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Related Links: 

Scientific studies, data and history refute Pentagon’s climate/national security claims – Climate Depot’s Rebuttal