“Climate change war” is not a metaphor
http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-change-war-is-not-a-metaphor/
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The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. In a sentence, heres what they found: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it but we can still fix it if we decide to work together.
But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars.
That finding was highlighted in this weeks premiere of Showtimes new star-studded climate change docu-drama Years of Living Dangerously. In the series first episode, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman traveled to Syria to investigate how a long-running drought has contributed to that conflict. Climate change has also been discussed as a threat multiplier for recent conflicts in Darfur, Tunisia, Egypt, and future conflicts, too.
Climate change worsens the divide between haves and have-nots, hitting the poor the hardest. It can also drive up food prices and spawn megadisasters, creating refugees and taxing the resiliency of governments.