By David Finnigan

Since the Club of Rome published its 1972 treatise The Limits to Growth, there has been a steady trickle of scientists and writers producing plausible accounts of the consequences of Global Warming. It doesn’t seem to have stuck.

People had no difficulty visualising the consequences of a nuclear war. But the concrete impacts threatened by climate change seem vastly harder to grasp.

One minor quibble is that the issue is frequently framed in terms of the charismatic megafauna we stand to lose. Of course no-one wants the Giant Panda, the Blue Whale or the Polar Bear to become extinct. But at the same time, it’s quite easy to envision a world without whales, bears or pandas, which is virtually unchanged.

The effects of Global Warming which stand to make a real difference to our day-to-day life are those that impact on societies, nations and civilisations.

Political and military thinktanks have spent the last 30 years developing increasingly sophisticated models of the conflicts, epidemics and famines we might see in upcoming decades.

This was brought home to me on a recent ramble around the Parliamentary Triangle in Canberra.

The Australian War Memorial sits at the top of Anzac Parade. Along the length of the Parade are a series of shrines to wars in which Australia has lost troops. There’s a monument for the First World War, the Second, the Vietnam and Korean Wars and various peacekeeping missions in the Pacific.

At the end of the street, almost at the foot of the War Memorial, is a huge patch of bare dirt, enough space for the largest monument yet. The foresightedness of the architects in anticipating the need for a memorial to some future war is sobering, to say the least.

So what’s it going to be? I spoke to several scientists and requested their predictions for potential conflicts and disasters that might arise as a consequence of Global Warming. First cab off the rank: scientist, historian, and fellow at the CSIRO Centre for Sustainable Ecosystems, Dr Doug Cocks:

“On the assumption that the IPCC ‘best bet’ scenarios eventuate, the regions most affected will be (a) those where sea-level rise displaces large numbers of coast-dwelling people, eg Bangladesh, Pacific islands,” says Cocks.

“Conflicts will break out as climate change refugees look for somewhere to live, and (b) those where water supplies for growing irrigated and dryland crops are significantly reduced.

“The flows of water from glacial melt on the Tibetan Plateau are the best example. Well over a billion people in China, India and other parts of Asia are sustained by these great rivers.  Conflicts are extremely likely as these flows dry up.  Another good example could be the struggle for water in the Middle East, eg between Palestine and Israel for water from the Golan Heights.’

To hear more about some of the potential impacts of climate change, check out Climate Change: Reflecting Back, Looking Forward, taking place as part of National Science Week.

Tags: Climate Change, conflict, Giant Pandas, War Memorial

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