We now find ourselves in a new geological age: the Anthropocene. The climate is changing and species are disappearing at a rate not seen since Earth’s major extinctions. The rapid, large-scale changes caused by fossil-fuel powered globalization increasingly threaten societies in new, unforeseen ways. But most security policies continue to be built on notions that look backward to a time when geopolitical threats derived mainly from the rivalries of states with fixed boundaries. Instead, Anthropocene Geopolitics shows that security policy must look forward to quickly shape a sustainable world no longer dependent on fossil fuels. A future of long-term peace and geopolitical security depends on keeping the earth in conditions roughly similar to those we have known throughout history. Minimizing disruptions that would further put civilization at risk of extinction urgently requires policies that reflect new Anthropocene “planetary boundaries.” This book is published in English. - Depuis la fin de la dernière période glaciaire, l’humanité a transformé sa niche écologique, modifié sa position dans l’écosystème, provoqué des changements climatiques radicaux et affecté la diversité des espèces aux quatre coins du monde, ce qui a entraîné l’apparition d’une nouvelle époque géologique, l’Anthropocène. À l’échelle planétaire, les activités humaines exercent un impact direct sur les frontières qu’elles transforment durablement alors que ces mêmes frontières ont constitué le cadre naturel dans lequel l’humanité a pu prospérer durant les dix derniers millénaires. Les changements rapides qui affectent notre système terrestre remettent directement en cause les anciennes hypothèses qui considéraient des frontières stables comme le principal fondement de la souveraineté. Aujourd’hui, ces postulats périmés doivent impérativement être réévalués. Paradoxalement, la phase de mondialisation actuelle nécessite une redéfinition de la notion même de frontières stables. En effet, l’élargissement des droits de propriété et des champs de compétence pourrait en fait prévenir la mise en œuvre de mesures d’adaptation efficaces visant à répondre aux enjeux du changement climatique. Garantir la survie d’une économie fondée sur la consommation de combustibles fossiles demeure à ce jour une priorité politique comme le fait de devoir faire face aux catastrophes naturelles à l’échelle mondiale – ce qui rend les objectifs de durabilité d’autant plus difficiles à atteindre dans un environnement en pleine mutation où les rivalités politiques exacerbées façonnent la politique globale contemporaine. L’entrée de la Terre dans une nouvelle époque géologique, l’Anthropocène (l’ère de l’homme), représente un formidable défi éthique, qu’il convient de relever en établissant une véritable politique de durabilité, et ce, au moment où l’humanité s’engage dans la dernière phase du processus de mondialisation. Dans un tel contexte, pour être réellement efficaces, les connaissances et les perspectives résultant des analyses académiques et des initiatives pratiques de toute nature devront être intégrées dans une vision globale.

This thought-provoking and clearly argued text provides a critical geopolitical lens for understanding global environment politics. A subfield of political geography, environmental geopolitics examines how environmental themes are used to support geopolitical arguments and physical realities of power and place. Shannon O’Lear considers common, problematic traits of such familiar but widely misunderstood narratives about human-environment relationships. Mainstream themes about human-environment relationships include narratives about presumed connections between human population trends and resource scarcity; ways in which conflict and violence are linked to resource use or environmental degradation; climate security; and the application of science to solve environmental problems. O’Lear questions these narratives, arguing that the role or meaning of the environment is rarely specified, humans’ role in these situations tends to be considered selectively, and little attention is paid to spatial dimensions of human-environment relationships. She shows that how we tend to think about environmental concerns often obscure value judgments and constrain more dynamic approaches to human-environment relationships. Environmental geopolitics demonstrates how we can question familiar assumptions to generate more just and creative approaches to our many relationships with the environment.

The Anthropocene has become central to understanding the intimate connections between human life and the natural environment, but it has fractured our sense of time and possibility. What implications does that fracturing have for how we should think about politics in these new times? In this cutting-edge intervention, Duncan Kelly considers how this new geological era could shape our future by engaging with the recent past of our political thinking. If politics remains a short-term affair governed by electoral cycles, could an Anthropocenic sense of time, value and prosperity be built into it, altering long-established views about abundance, energy and growth? Is the Anthropocene so disruptive that it is no more than a harbinger of ecological doom, or can modern politics adapt by rethinking older debates about states, territories, and populations? Kelly rejects both pessimistic fatalism about humanity’s demise, and an optimistic fatalism that makes the Anthropocene into a problem too big for politics, best left to the market or technology to solve. His skilful defence of the potential for democratic politics to negotiate this challenge is an indispensable guide to the ideas that matter most to understanding this epochal transformation.

In the early years of the new millennium, hurricanes lashed the Caribbean and flooded New Orleans as heat waves and floods seemed to alternate in Europe. Snows were disappearing on Mount Kilimanjaro while the ice caps on both poles retreated. The resulting disruption caused to many societies and the potential for destabilizing international migration has meant that the environment has become a political priority.The scale of environmental change caused by globalization is now so large that security has to be understood as an ecological process. A new geopolitics is long overdue. In this book Simon Dalby provides an accessible and engaging account of the challenges we face in responding to security and environmental change. He traces the historical roots of current thinking about security and climate change to show the roots of the contemporary concern and goes on to outline modern thinking about securitization which uses the politics of invoking threats as a central part of the analysis. He argues that to understand climate change and the dislocations of global ecology, it is necessary to look back at how ecological change is tied to the expansion of the world economic system over the last few centuries. As the global urban system changes on a local and global scale, the world’s population becomes vulnerable in new ways. In a clear and careful analysis, Dalby shows that theories of human security now require a much more nuanced geopolitical imagination if they are to grapple with these new vulnerabilities and influence how we build more resilient societies to cope with the coming disruptions. This book will appeal to level students and scholars of geography, environmental studies, security studies and international politics, as well as to anyone concerned with contemporary globalization and its transformation of the biosphere.

This volume asks what security means in the Anthropocene era and what political innovations are needed to chart a more sustainable path for global development in the decades to come.

Explores the significance of the Anthropocene for environmental politics, analysing political concepts in view of contemporary environmental challenges.

This clear and concise introductory textbook guides students through their first engagement with geopolitics. It offers a clear framework for understanding contemporary conflicts by showing how geography provides opportunities and limits upon the actions of countries, national groups, and terrorist organizations. This second edition is fundamentally restructured to emphasize geopolitical agency, and non-state actors. The text is fully revised, containing a brand new chapter on environmental geopolitics, which includes discussion of climate change and resource conflicts. The text contains updated case studies, such as the Korean conflict, Israel-Palestine and Chechnya and Kashmir, to emphasize the multi-faceted nature of conflict. These, along with guided exercises, help explain contemporary global power struggles, environmental geopolitics, the global military actions of the United States, the persistence of nationalist conflicts, the changing role of borders, and the new geopolitics of terrorism, and peace movements. Throughout, the readers are introduced to different theoretical perspectives, including feminist contributions, as both the practice and representation of geopolitics are discussed. Introduction to Geopolitics is an ideal introductory text which provides a deeper and critical understanding of current affairs, geopolitical structures and agents. The text is extensively illustrated with diagrams, maps, photographs and end of chapter further reading. Both students and general readers alike will find this book an essential stepping-stone to understanding contemporary conflicts.