ENVIRONMENT AND SECURITY Flashcards
While it explores some ideas that have roots in classical thought, this literature is largely a response to two almost simultaneous events: the end of the ____________, which compelled a rethinking of the concept of security
Cold War (1989–92)
mobilized scientific evidence of global environmental change into a global policy agenda widely regarded as urgent and vital.
the 1992 Rio Earth Summit
The Peloponnesian War and Plato’s Republic
Thucydides
eighteenth century demographer
Thomas Malthus
the contemporary formulation of the idea that there is a connection between the health of our natural environment and the security of individual persons, societies and even the biosphere emerges in the context of the environmental movement
1960s and 1970s
Rachel Carson’s seminal book
Silent Spring (1962)
which problematized the use and abuse of pesticides in the countryside by showing the devastating effects of such products on songbirds.
Rachel Carson’s seminal book, Silent Spring (1962)
The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, 1967)
Lynn White Jr.
The Tragedy of the Commons, 1968),
Garrett Hardin
(The Population Bomb, 1968)
Paul Ehrlich
(The Limits to Growth, 1972).
Donella Meadows
The end of the Cold War (1989–92) and the almost simultaneous global attention given to the environment at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 provided the platform for a rapid expansion of the field and remarkable deepening of its concepts and key terms.
FIELD MATURITY
On the other hand, the idea that environmental stress could be a source of national insecurity, introduced to many practitioners through the__________, ________ began to attract attention.
1987 Brundtland Commission report, Our Common Future,
head of Bern-Zurich group
Günther Baechler
head of Toronto group
Thomas Homer-Dixon
resource scarcity arises in three ways:
-decrease in the supply of a resource
-increase in demand due mainly to population growth
-from structural factors
Their focus is not, however, on the scarcity of renewables, but instead they argue that the biggest driver of environmental violence is the local abundance of non-renewable resources such as ________, _______ and _____.
precious metals, diamonds and oil.
one of four central themes informing the distinct subdiscipline of political ecology.
Environmental conflict
the founding editors of the Journal of Political Ecology
James B. Greenberg and Thomas K. Park
two most important theoretical influences
-political economy
-ecological analysis
insistence on the need to link the distribution of power with productive activity
political economy
its broader vision of bioenvironmental relationships
ecological analysis
have criticized “apolitical” environmental conflict theses (both the environmental scarcity and the environmental abundance and conflict theses).
Political ecologists
Proponents of a human security approach to environmental security tend to argue that the literature that links the environment to conflict “is theoretically rather than empirically driven, and is both a product and legitimation of the North’s security agenda”.
HUMAN SECURITY
WHAT IS UNDP STANDS FOR?
United Nations Development Programme
explains four dimensions of human security as fundamental
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
four dimensions of human security as fundamental:
-it is universal
-its components are interdependent
-it is easier to protect through prevention than intervention
-it is people-centered.
Almost all dangers to human existence may be categorized as human security threats. These threats may be further subdivided according to their sources which might be the Physical, living or social sytems.
THREATS TO HUMAN SECURITY
Physiical System threats include:
Natural disasters such as;
-Earthquakes
-Flood
-Tsunamis
Living System threats include:
Diseases
Famine
Ecological disasters.
Social System threats include:
Into social
Political
Economic settings
_____ is believed to be a delicate balance rendered unstable by human action
Ecological security
who established the conceptual basis for U.N. peacebuilding operations, especially post-conflict peacebuilding (UNSG 1992).
U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghal
In the year ____report An Agenda for Peace
1992
In what year the U.N. General Assembly and the Security Council adopted substantively identical resolutions on peacebuilding
2016
_________ is both backward-looking and forward looking: it seeks to understand and address the root causes of a conflict and then to build a sustainable peace in the years following conflict.
Peace building
focuses on the period following a peace agreement or military victory.
Post-conflict peace building
are perhaps the most widely recognized aspect of the relationship between natural resources and armed conflict.
Conflict resources
a nongovernmental organization (NGO) leading efforts to prevent and address the trade in conflict resources, defines them as “natural resources whose systematic exploitation and trade in a context of conflict contribute to, benefit from, or result in the commission of serious violations of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law, or violations amounting to crimes under international law”.
Global Witness
Any natural resource that provides a revenue stream is a potential ________.
conflict resource
Environmental change is only one of three main sources of scarcity of renewable resources; the others are population growth and unequal social distribution of resources. The concept “environmental scarcity” encompasses all three sources.
ENVIRONMENTAL SCARCITY
Resources can be roughly divided into two groups:
-non-renewable - like oil and iron ore.
-renewables - fresh water, forests, fertile soils, and the earth’s ozone layer.
