It’s Earth Overshoot Day, an unprecedented global heatwave has baked us for two months, and I’m rebooting Ecowar with the first of what I intend to be a weekly roundup of atrocities. Buckle up. First of all, this heat wave is due to climate change says the World Weather Attribution. No, any single weather event…
German professor Harald Welzer: “we will see a renaissance of violent conflict in the 21st century, and many of these conflicts will spring from climate change”
“You always have a higher potential for violent conflict when the survival conditions of groups of people are threatened. […] if all these scientists and climate researchers are right, or even close to right, what does it mean for greater potential for violent conflict? I think the answers are not encouraging.” “My belief is that…
Invitation to fight the ecowar
I need YOU to write Ecowar. I will assist. You get final say. Together we will produce a little something cool. Read the full call for papers for further inspiration and instructions. (Languages accepted: preferably English, Danish, perhaps German.)
Download the book "Ecowar – Natural Resources and Conflict" for free
Dear reader, After five years of distribution by a publisher, my book Ecowar – Natural resources and conflict is now available for free under the Creative Commons Attribution license. That means you are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the…
Surprise: Few wars are primarily about oil
The Washington Post recently published Oil wars: Why nations aren’t battling over resources by Emily Meierding. Does this article remove the entire foundation of this blog and the book I made of it? Pointing at “invasion costs, occupation costs, international costs and investment costs”, Emily Meierding says oil wars are just not worth fighting. With…
Food Security and Conflict – speech and debate
Food Security and Conflict debate by Food Tank. Keynote speaker: David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. “The main concentration of world hunger now is in countries that are struggling with conflict.”
Read “THE OUTLAW OCEAN” series on New York Times
Check out New York Times’ six part series about the medevial conditions on the high seas. In this series on lawlessness on the high seas, Ian Urbina reveals that crime and violence in international waters often goes unpunished. In particular, ‘SEA SLAVES’: THE HUMAN MISERY THAT FEEDS PETS AND LIVESTOCK reports of slavery-like working conditions onboard….
Research summary
While blogging, a cornerstone of sources were scientific journal articles. These are covered in chapter four of the book, Thinking about it: theories of peace and war. The recent publication by Bove et al has inspired me to summarize some of the quantitative research about conflict over natural resources in a table. Enjoy… Tweet
2014 bookmarks – the year in war over natural resources
From the depths of my bookmarks (that were all automatically tweeted) on conflict and natural resources, here is a quick review of the way in which Earth was plundered for natural resources in the past year. Year 2014, the 100th anniversary of the first war to run on oil. In short, 2014 was just more…
Watch this one hour preview of Years of Living Dangerously
From the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy to the upheaval caused by drought in the Middle East, this groundbreaking documentary event series provides first-hand reports on those affected by, and seeking solutions to, climate change.This episode full of footage from Syria, Texas and Indonesia. Watch it.
2013 bookmarks
If year 2012 was the year Ecowar went from being this blog to being primarily a book, 2013 was the year when Ecowar resigned to merely being a category of bookmarks / tweets. To compensate You, my loyal reader, (and satisfy my own curiosity) here is a quick selection of highlights from the past year….
All wars are caused by the economy
Just kidding. Then again… Prince Charles recently gave a speech in which he mentioned the causality behind the Syrian civil war as well as the financial system. “The tragic conflict in Syria provides a terrifyingly graphic example, where a severe drought for the last seven years has decimated Syria’s rural economy […] Driving many farmers…