A Need to Subvert Climate Violence & Climate Change
Climate violence and climate change are interconnected.
This data story and sketch cross-references and stacks two often siloed sets of data:
👉 Global Average Surface Temps (btw 1880–2020)
👉 Major Key Wars (spanning up until 2020)
The term “climate” can be viewed in the meteorological sense AND in the prevailing conditional sense, such as a “social climate.”
Various acts of social, environmental, and biological violence reside under the broad category of climate violence.
Bear in mind, climate violence and climate change are caused by people and/or organizations who tend to foster, promote and/or cling to a culture of violence vs. alternatives, such as a culture of peace and/or community.
🔥 War creates an inflamed social climate by utilizing various violent tactics against other humans, their places of gathering and shelter, their local environments (i.e., nature and wildlife), etc.
📊 The compound interest of war, at a social and environmental level, yields great planetary and humanitarian debts, making living things within the domain of the #PlanetaryBoundaries susceptible to global bankruptcy. This could rob the lives of many, ahead of their natural time.
By reflecting upon insights and lessons from (inclusive) histories of climate violence and war, in tandem with studies on climate science and sustainable development, perhaps we’d be better able to make substantial progress towards sustainability and planetary goals.
Perhaps because such an approach has not been widely adopted and put into practice before, we see the stagnation and regression we do on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) progress tracker.
If there is a global objective for the creation and implementation of science-based and humane sustainable development, climate action, and climate resiliency, how can such be effectively achieved without examinations of history and applications of the social sciences?
Are you working on projects such as this now?
There seems to be little research on war’s actual ecological footprint and social footprint.
Over the summer, Reuters reported that, “‘World’s war on greenhouse gas emissions has a military blind spot,” but offered an estimation that global militaries’ fuel consumption contributes to about 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Link to article below).
However, those familiar with various sustainability frameworks and/or the basics of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), know there are multiple things at play when it comes to measuring an ecological and social foot print. It’s more than about the carbon footprint.
A quick read of this data sketch exercise, paired with some basic common sense logic, demonstrates the interconnectivity between climate vio·lence + climate change. To exclude the role and impact of w·a·r from the multifaceted conversation, study, and mitigation of global security and social well-being within the planetary boundaries is a dangerous high-risk game.
DATA SOURCES:
Global Avg. Temps, from Climate[dot]gov
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature
A Long List of Wars from Britannica[dot]com https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-wars-2031197#ref328528
GHG Blindspot:
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worlds-war-greenhouse-gas-emissions-has-military-blind-spot-2023-07-10/
