Environmental and Human Security: Then and Now 1 2 ALAN D. HECHT AND P. H. LIOTTA * 1 U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development 2 Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy Salve Regina University 1. Nontraditional Threats to Security The events of September 11, 2001 have sharpened the debate over the meaning of being secure. Before 9/11 there were warnings in all parts of the world that social and environmental changes were occurring. While there was prosperity in North America and Western Europe, there was also increasing recognition that local and global effects of ecosystem degradation posed a serious threat. Trekking from Cairo to Cape Town thirty years after living in Africa as a young teacher, for example, travel writer Paul Theroux concluded that development in sub-Saharan Africa had failed to improve the quality of life for 300 million people: “Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it—hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can’t tell the politicians from the witch-doctors” (2002). While scholars and historians will debate the causes of 9/11 for some time, one message is clear: An often dizzying array of nontraditional threats and complex vulnerabilities define security today. We must understand them, and deal with them, or suffer the consequences. Environmental security has always required att- tion to nontraditional threats linked closely with social and economic well-being.

Experts discuss the risks global environmental change poses for the human security, including disaster and disease, violence, and increasing inequity. In recent years, scholars in international relations and other fields have begun to conceive of security more broadly, moving away from a state-centered concept of national security toward the idea of human security, which emphasizes the individual and human well-being. Viewing global environmental change through the lens of human security connects such problems as melting ice caps and carbon emissions to poverty, vulnerability, equity, and conflict. This book examines the complex social, health, and economic consequences of environmental change across the globe. In chapters that are both academically rigorous and policy relevant, the book discusses the connections of global environmental change to urban poverty, natural disasters (with a case study of Hurricane Katrina), violent conflict (with a study of the decade-long Nepalese civil war), population, gender, and development. The book makes clear the inadequacy of traditional understandings of security and shows how global environmental change is raising new, unavoidable questions of human insecurity, conflict, cooperation, and sustainable development. Contributors W. Neil Adger, Jennifer Bailey, Jon Barnett, Victoria Basolo, Hans Georg Bohle, Mike Brklacich, May Chazan, Chris Cocklin, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Indra de Soysa, Heather Goldsworthy, Betsy Hartmann, Robin M. Leichenko, Laura Little, Alexander López, Richard A. Matthew, Bryan McDonald, Eric Neumayer, Kwasi Nsiah-Gyabaah, Karen L. O'Brien, Marvin S. Soroos, Bishnu Raj Upreti

This book explores how climate change and disaster risks threaten human security in Asia. Climate change and disaster risks have emerged as major human security challenges in the twenty-first century, and are an imminent “threat multiplier” with the potential to harm the vital core of human life and curtail people’s freedom and ability to live with dignity. Climate change and disaster risks undermine the security of individuals, communities, nations, and the world, considering the increasing trend in the frequency and magnitude of hydro-meteorological disasters and the projections on their future adverse impacts. Despite recent advances in the literature, there is still a major gap in understanding the relationship and linkages between climate change, disaster risks, and human security, particularly as gleaned from the Asian experience. Asia is the world’s most vulnerable region in terms of the quantity and magnitude of impacts from various forms of disaster. At the same time, it has developed a number of innovative responses to address those risks, offering a wealth of experience. Exploring and capitalizing on the Asian perspective, this book provides valuable resource material for students, academics, researchers, policymakers, and development practitioners working in these areas.

Severe droughts, damaging floods and mass migration: Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research and a challenge for the world’s governance structures. But how severe are the security risks and conflict potentials of climate change? Could global warming trigger a sequence of events leading to economic decline, social unrest and political instability? What are the causal relationships between resource scarcity and violent conflict? This book brings together international experts to explore these questions using in-depth case studies from around the world. Furthermore, the authors discuss strategies, institutions and cooperative approaches to stabilize the climate-society interaction.

Includes universal frameworks and processes to provide a structured approach to cope with climate change impacts in megacities Features detail-oriented research and analysis of climate change health risks Discusses seven megacities' case studies in developed and developing countries Uses a risk management system approach that deals with climate variability and its impacts before and after the severe weather event hits the city Helps readers understand the actual policies and adopt them more speedily and efficiently as climate change impacts on health become more evident

"Human security" is an approach that rejects the traditional prioritization of state security, and instead identifies the individual as the primary referent of security. It offers a way of broadening our perspective, and recognizing that the most pressing threats to individuals do not come from interstate war, but from the emergencies that affect people every day, such as famine, disease, displacement, civil conflict and environmental degradation. Human security is about people living their lives with dignity, being free from "fear" and "want". To date, there has been a strong tendency to focus on insecurity caused by civil conflict, with less attention on issues to do with environmental security. This volume addresses the threat posed by natural disasters, which represent an increasingly major human security threat to people everywhere. In looking at natural disasters, this book also refines the human security approach. It does so through developing its previously unexplored interdisciplinary potential. This volume explicitly seeks to bring the human security approach into conversation with contributions from a range of disciplines: development, disaster sociology, gender studies, international law, international relations, philosophy, and public health. Collectively these scholars unpack the "human" element of "natural" disasters. In doing so, an emphasis is placed on how pre-existing vulnerabilities can be gravely worsened, as well as the interconnected nature of human security threats. The book presents a variety of case studies that include the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2011 "triple disasters" in Japan.

Climate change caused by human activity is the most fundamental challenge facing mankind in the 21st century, since it will drastically alter the living conditions of millions of people, mainly in the Global South. Environmental violence, including resource crises such as peak fossil fuel, will lie at the heart of future conflicts. However, Genocide Studies have so far neglected this subject, due to the emphasis that traditional genocide scholarship places on ideology and legal prosecution, leading to a narrow understanding of the driving forces of genocide. This books aims at changing this, initiating a dialogue between scholars working in the areas of climate change and genocide. Research into genocide as well as climate change is a highly interdisciplinary endeavour, transcending the boundaries of established disciplines. Contributions to this book address this by approaching the subject from a wide array of methodological, theoretical, disciplinary and regional perspectives. As all the contributions show, climate change is a major threat multiplier for violence or non-violent destruction and any understanding of prevention needs to take this into account. They offer a basis for much needed Critical Prevention Studies, which aims at sustainable prevention. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.