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SUMMARY:Climate Refugees: Destabilising an Unstable World - Norman Myers\,
  University of Oxford
DTSTART:20080428T160000Z
DTEND:20080428T173000Z
UID:TALK11770@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Benjamin Morris
DESCRIPTION:The Cultures of Climate Change at CRASSH announces its first e
 vent of Easter Term\, a lecture by Professor Norman Myers of the Universit
 y of Oxford. This lecture will be followed by discussion and a wine recept
 ion.\n\nAbstract:\nWe are witnessing a new phenomenon in the global arena:
  the environmental dimension to security issues. It reflects those environ
 mental factors--water\, soil\, vegetation\, climate\, and whatever others 
 are prime components of a nation's environmental foundation--that ultimate
 ly underpin all our economies and hence our societies and our political st
 ability. When these environmental resources are degraded\, our security de
 clines too. In fact\, any adverse environmental factor can serve as a sour
 ce of economic disruption\, social tension and political antagonism. While
  it may not always trigger outright confrontation\, it helps to destabiliz
 e societies in an already unstable world--a world in which we can expect t
 he destabilizing process to become more common as growing numbers of peopl
 e seek to sustain themselves from declining environments. This thesis is i
 llustrated with particular reference to three issues: water supplies (and 
 scope for water wars)\, global warming and population/poverty pressures. E
 nvironmental refugees: already total 25 million or more than all conventio
 nal refugees\, and could total well over 200 million in a globally warmed 
 world.\n\nNorman Myers is currently Professor and Visiting Fellow at Green
  College\, Oxford University\, and at the Said Business School. He has bee
 n a senior advisor to organizations such as the United Nations\, the World
  Bank and the White House. For his pioneering work on mass extinction of s
 pecies\, tropical deforestation\, environmental threats to security\, ‘p
 erverse’ subsidies\, environmental refugees\, and degradation of future 
 evolution he has been awarded the Volvo Environment Prize\, the UNEP/Sasak
 awa Environment Prize and the Blue Planet Prize. He is only the second per
 son worldwide to receive all three major environmental prizes.
LOCATION:CRASSH Seminar Room\, 17 Mill Lane
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