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Ecoviolence explores links between environmental scarcities of key
renewable resources_such as cropland, fresh water, and forests_and
violent rebellions, insurgencies, and ethnic clashes in developing
countries. Detailed contemporary studies of civil violence in
Chiapas, Gaza, South Africa, Pakistan, and Rwanda show how
environmental scarcity has played a limited to significant role in
causing social instability in each of these contexts. Drawing upon
theory and key findings from the case studies, the authors suggest
that environmental scarcity will worsen in many poor countries in
coming decades and will become an increasingly important cause of
major civil violence.
Nils Petter Gleditsch International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
(PRIO) & Department of Sociology and Political Science,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trond heim This
book could hardly have happened but for the end of the Cold War.
The decline of the East-West conflict has opened up the arena for
increased attention to other lines of conflict, in Europe and at
the global level. Environmental disruption, not a new phenomenon by
any means, is a chief beneficiary of the shift in priorities in the
public debate. The Scientific and Environmental Affairs Divi sion
of NATO has moved with the times and has defined environmental
security as one of its priority areas for cooperation with Central
and Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. This
book is the main output of an Advanced Research Workshop (ARW),
held in Bolkesjl/l, Norway, 12-16 June 1996. I would like to
acknowledge the personal support of L. Veiga da Cunha, Director of
the Priority Area on Environmental Security. Research on these
issues is now very much a collaborative effort across former lines
of division in Europe. NATO encourages, indeed requires, that this
be reflected in the composition of the participants, as well as the
organizing committee. This meeting was organized by a group of five
people from five different countries: Lothar Brock (Germany), Nils
Petter Gleditsch (Norway), Thomas Homer-Dixon (Canada), Renat
Perelet (Co-Director, Russia), and Evan Vlachos (USA)."
Nils Petter Gleditsch International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
(PRIO) & Department of Sociology and Political Science,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trond heim This
book could hardly have happened but for the end of the Cold War.
The decline of the East-West conflict has opened up the arena for
increased attention to other lines of conflict, in Europe and at
the global level. Environmental disruption, not a new phenomenon by
any means, is a chief beneficiary of the shift in priorities in the
public debate. The Scientific and Environmental Affairs Divi sion
of NATO has moved with the times and has defined environmental
security as one of its priority areas for cooperation with Central
and Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. This
book is the main output of an Advanced Research Workshop (ARW),
held in Bolkesjl/l, Norway, 12-16 June 1996. I would like to
acknowledge the personal support of L. Veiga da Cunha, Director of
the Priority Area on Environmental Security. Research on these
issues is now very much a collaborative effort across former lines
of division in Europe. NATO encourages, indeed requires, that this
be reflected in the composition of the participants, as well as the
organizing committee. This meeting was organized by a group of five
people from five different countries: Lothar Brock (Germany), Nils
Petter Gleditsch (Norway), Thomas Homer-Dixon (Canada), Renat
Perelet (Co-Director, Russia), and Evan Vlachos (USA)."
Despite all of society’s advances, our problems proliferate. Wars abound, environmental degradation accelerates, economies topple overnight, and pandemics such as AIDS and tuberculosis continue to spread. The Internet and other media help to disseminate knowledge, but they’ve also created an “info-glut” and left us too little time to process it. What’s more, advances in technology have made the world so bewilderingly fast-paced and complex that fewer people are able even to grasp the problems, let alone generate solutions. That space between the problems that arise and our ability to solve them is “the ingenuity gap,” and as we careen towards an increasingly harried and hectic future, the gap seems only to widen.
As he explores the possible consequences of this gap, Thomas Homer-Dixon offers an absorbing assessment of the state of the world and our ability to fix it. Culling from an astounding array of fields–from economics to evolution, political science to paleontology, computers to communications –he integrates his vast knowledge into an accessible and engaging argument. This is a book with profound implications for everyone that we can ill afford to ignore.
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