For a number of years now the Pentagon has reported that Climate Change is likely to increase instability and conflicts. See Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security pdf
Now scientists have done a study that predicts that all kinds of violence are likely to increase as Climate Change warms our planet.
Violence will rise as climate changes, scientists predict
By Monte Morin
Now, three UC Berkeley researchers have pulled together data from these and other studies and concluded that the incidence of war and civil unrest may increase by as much as 56% between now and 2050, due to warmer temperature and extreme rainfall patterns predicted by climate change scientists.
Likewise, episodes of interpersonal violence — murder, assault, rape, domestic abuse — could increase by as much as 16%, they report in a study published Thursday by the journal Science.
"We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict … across all major regions of the world," the researchers concluded.
Here is an example of how Climate Change makes an area unlivable as the climate becomes more erratic.
Sahel villagers fleeing climate change must not be ignored
Those displaced by climate change are not granted refugee status or protection. Their plight should not be overlooked
By Alice Thomas
These recurrent crises have pulled the most vulnerable Sahelians into a downward spiral wherein there is insufficient time to recover before the next shock hits. Repeated droughts and floods, combined with land degradation, have lowered crop yields and wiped out people's limited savings.
As an anti-war activist for over four decades this prospect of a rash of climate driven conflicts engulfing the planet makes me shudder in horror at scale of the violence that could potentially could be in store over the coming centuries as Climate Change plays out.
The very thought that we could be the generation sowing the seeds for centuries of climate driven violence, conflict, and human misery makes it that much more imperative for us act to reduce the harm we are bequeathing our progeny.