The Impacts of Global Warming and Changing Weather Patterns on Human Conflict
Abstract
As a result of changing weather patterns, global warming has had multifaceted impacts upon livelihoods in the primarily agrarian regions of the world. Critically dependent on social setting and local political circumstances, including the presence of robust institutions for resource management, these effects of climate change could result in lasting political instability and deadly social conflicts. We strive to understand the factors affecting violence and what conditions could mediate these risks of conflict. Combined with remote sensing and weather station data measuring precipitation, vegetation health, and land use, we report new findings from two national population surveys in Kenya. We conducted these surveys at a four-year interval (2014 and 2018) and asked questions about drought, food security, livelihoods, and conflict experiences and attitudes. Conventionally, climate-conflict research has relied upon observational data reporting trends for a regional or country level. In our ongoing research, we provide explanations for precisely how the association between changing climate and support for violence emerges as mediated by household livelihoods and resources, local contexts of cooperation and reconciliation, and social capital inputs.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMGC42A..06L
- Keywords:
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- 0495 Water/energy interactions;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0299 General or miscellaneous;
- GEOHEALTH;
- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES