Valerie Percival and Thomas Homer-Dixon | The causal relationship between environmental scarcities – the scarcity of renewable resources – and the outbreak of violent conflict is complex. This article analyses the link between South Africa’s environmental scarcity and violent conflict.
Valerie Percival and Thomas Homer-Dixon | On April 6, 1994, President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane exploded in the skies above the Kigali region of Rwanda. Violence gripped the country. Between April and August of 1994, as many as 1 million people were killed and more than 2 million people became refugees.
Peter Gizewski and Thomas Homer-Dixon | This paper examines the contribution of environmental scarcity to violent conflict in Pakistan. It argues that scarcity is never the sole cause of Pakistan’s social conflict.
Kimberley Kelly and Thomas Homer-Dixon | The achievement of limited autonomy for Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho in 1993 engendered hope for peace in the Middle East, yet violence persists. The links between environmental scarcity and conflict are complex, but in Gaza, water scarcity has clearly aggravated socioeconomic conditions.
Philip Howard and Thomas Homer-Dixon | This paper identifies the different forms of environmental scarcities that affect the people of Chiapas, Mexico. In recent years, these scarcities have become acute.
What is the relationship between environmental stress—especially shortages and degradation of cropland, forest stocks, and supplies of fresh water—and civil violence in developing countries, including insurgency, ethnic strife, and revolution?
Within the next fifty years, the planet’s human population will probably pass nine billion, and global economic output may quintuple. Largely as a result, scarcities of renewable resources will increase sharply. The total area of high-quality agricultural land will drop, as will the extent of forests and the number of species they sustain.
Growing scarcities of renewable resources can contribute to social instability and civil strife.
A number of scholars have recently asserted that large-scale human-induced environmental pressures may seriously affect national and international security. Unfortunately, the environment-security theme encompasses an almost unmanageable array of sub-issues, especially if we define “security” broadly to include human physical, social, and economic well-being.
