Experts discuss the risks global environmental change poses for the human security, including disaster and disease, violence, and increasing inequity.In recent years, scholars in international relations and other fields have begun to conceive of security more broadly, moving away from a state-centered concept of national security toward the idea of human security, which emphasizes the individual and human well-being. Viewing global environmental change through the lens of human security connects such problems as melting ice caps and carbon emissions to poverty, vulnerability, equity, and conflict. This book examines the complex social, health, and economic consequences of environmental change across the globe. In chapters that are both academically rigorous and policy relevant, the book discusses the connections of global environmental change to urban poverty, natural disasters (with a case study of Hurricane Katrina), violent conflict (with a study of the decade-long Nepalese civil war), population, gender, and development. The book makes clear the inadequacy of traditional understandings of security and shows how global environmental change is raising new, unavoidable questions of human insecurity, conflict, cooperation, and sustainable development.
Contributors
W. Neil Adger, Jennifer Bailey, Jon Barnett, Victoria Basolo, Hans Georg Bohle, Mike Brklacich, May Chazan, Chris Cocklin, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Indra de Soysa, Heather Goldsworthy, Betsy Hartmann, Robin M. Leichenko, Laura Little, Alexander López, Richard A. Matthew, Bryan McDonald, Eric Neumayer, Kwasi Nsiah-Gyabaah, Karen L. O'Brien, Marvin S. Soroos, Bishnu Raj Upreti
Richard A. Matthew is Associate Professor of International and Environmental Politics in the Schools of Social Ecology and Social Science at the University of California, Irvine.
Jon Barnett is Reader and Australian Research Council Fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne.
Bryan McDonald is Assistant Director of the Center for Unconventional Security at the University of California, Irvine.
Karen L. O'Brien is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo.
Jon Barnett is Reader and Australian Research Council Fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne.
Richard A. Matthew is Associate Professor of International and Environmental Politics in the Schools of Social Ecology and Social Science at the University of California, Irvine.
Karen L. O'Brien is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo.
Bryan McDonald is Assistant Director of the Center for Unconventional Security at the University of California, Irvine.
Jon Barnett is Reader and Australian Research Council Fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne.
W. Neil Adger leads the research effort on adaptation at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.
Richard A. Matthew is Associate Professor of International and Environmental Politics in the Schools of Social Ecology and Social Science at the University of California, Irvine.
Karen L. O'Brien is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo.
Indra de Soysa is Senior Research Fellow, Department of Political and Cultural Change, Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn. He has recently published articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution, American Sociological Review, and Journal of Peace Research. His research topics are the causes of civil violence, the economic and social effects of globalization, and the political economy of governance. He has a book forthcoming entitled Foreign Direct Investment, Democracy, & Development: The Contours, Correlates, and Concomitants of Globalization.
Eric Neumayer is Senior Lecturer in Environment and Development at the London School of Economics (LSE). He is the author of Weak Versus Strong Sustainability—Exploring the Limits of Two Opposing Paradigms (1999 and 2003), Greening Investment and Trade: Environmental Protection without Protectionism (2001) and The Pattern of Aid Giving—The Impact of Good Governance on Development Assistance (2003). His research interests, a full list of publications and recent working papers to download can be found at: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/neumayer/
Jon Barnett is Reader and Australian Research Council Fellow in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne.
Richard A. Matthew is Associate Professor of International and Environmental Politics in the Schools of Social Ecology and Social Science at the University of California, Irvine.
Karen L. O'Brien is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo.
