This timely volume presents the key concepts, issues, and debates surrounding environmental security, illustrating through a range of examples and cases how global environmental matters and international security are closely linked.
National security has traditionally been seen as a matter of military defense. However, global environmental phenomena, such as climate change, deforestation, and extreme weather events all impact national security. With greater attention being paid to climate change and other environmental issues than ever before, understanding the links between ecological health and international security is of critical importance.
Issues of climate change, dwindling resources, natural disaster, and disease that comprise environmental security are at the forefront of global politics and the media today. Environmental Security: A Guide to the Issues is a primer for anyone attuned to these threats. This well-reasoned, thought-provoking volume establishes and updates the connection between global environmental problems and international security, describing existing theories of environmental security and illustrating them with evidence from present-day global ecological realities.
Specifically, the book shows readers how both shortages and abundance of natural resources such as fresh water, oil and natural gas, and diamonds and timber can contribute to conflict and insecurity. It also discusses how agriculture and fisheries issues affect food security with international ramifications, how global ecosystem shifts like climate change are affecting both the earth and the movement of people on it, and how war and preparation for war can affect the natural environment. Finally, the book explores how nations can, and must, cooperate with each other to confront and manage these threats.
Features
• Wide-ranging cases and examples, from climate change to energy to water
• Primary source documents
• A chronology
• A glossary
• A bibliography
Highlights
• Offers a clear discussion of linkages between the natural environment and national security, free of political ideology
• Covers diverse geographical areas, from Africa to Asia to the Arctic
• Highlights issues and problems for further study and possible future cooperation
Elizabeth L. Chalecki, PhD, is visiting Mellon assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program at Goucher College, Baltimore, MD. Her expertise lies in the areas of climate change and security, environmental terrorism, and nontraditional security threat analysis. Before teaching at Goucher, she was the environment and security analyst at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. Chalecki has published over 20 articles and book chapters on diverse topics such as climate change and Arctic security, environmental terrorism, climate change and international law, public perceptions of environmental issues, and water in outer space. She has taught at Boston College; Boston University; California State University, Hayward; and the Monterey Institute of International Studies; and worked for Environment Canada, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Brookings Institution. She received her degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and an MSc in environmental geography from the University of Toronto.
