In his first book, Heat and fury: on the front lines of climate violencePolitical correspondent Peter Schwartzstein offers a compelling and compelling account of how climate change is alienating societies and fueling violence around the world. Each chapter presents a nuanced case study: Across the Sahel, farmers and pastoralists battle each other for access to limited water and fertile land. Off the coast of Bangladesh, impoverished farmers turn to fishing to supplement inconsistent harvests and avoid capture by pirates seeking ransom. Across Jordan, climate-related poverty pits people against their beleaguered government and appears to be fueling recruitment by terrorist and stateless armed groups. Schwartzstein uses over a decade of reporting to distill and humanize these complex conflicts, whether local or national.
American scientific he spoke with her about the ways climate change is stirring up dust kegs in society, the mechanisms that distort people’s decision-making, and the dangers of climate change-related violence in wealthy Western countries.
(Following is an edited transcript of the interview.)
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In many of the communities you covered, you were one of the few journalists who raised questions about the links between climate change and conflict. How did you land on this angle? Do you think politicians now see its importance?
I kind of fell into the field because the space for more direct political reporting was saturated. But the more I worked in the general climate and environmental field, the more important it seemed to me. I quickly realized that I didn’t have to try too hard to see the intense overlap: I could tell a country’s story better through the prism of water (access) and environment than through a superficial examination. political scenario I mean, why, for example, does Iraq have water problems? It has all its problems for the same reasons: the legacy of conflict, the mix of countries near and far, lack of capacity, corruption and many other problems.
In 2015, I was literally laughed out of a room in the Iraqi Interior Ministry when I relayed to a senior Iraqi police general that climate issues could contribute to jihadi recruitment. In his mind and in the minds of many of his contemporaries, this was nothing but foolishness. But in the last decade, there has been a huge shift in attitudes, both in the wider Middle East and in the parts of Africa where I work, but also further afield. I’m still not convinced that many of these civilian and security officials we see at the climate security conference see the connections as much as their words might suggest, but now the need to at least pay lip service is understood. the importance of climate change.
One difficulty seems to be that it is difficult to quantify the impact of climate change, and there are many different and overlapping factors that lead to conflict. How do you release these?
Yes, I would say that it is almost impossible to effectively quantify the impact of climate change. What I try to do in this book and in my work is to show that climate change is part of the equation, rather than putting a dollar amount on the contribution. This is, however, why it has taken so long to fully accept the destabilizing potential of climate change. He is a kind of victim of his everything.
Can you walk me through one of the examples in the book of how climate change might increase or create violence?
I never say that climate change alone leads an individual to join a terrorist group or attack a herding community in a neighboring village. But in Iraq, I met farmers who had endured years of climate-induced drought (in reverse). Many of these people were stripped of the meager financial savings they previously had, and that kind of desperation gave ISIS experts (recruiters for the terrorist group) some pretty powerful leverage as they made their proposals. When you have farmers who are heavily indebted, both to their extended family and in some cases to the agricultural banks, and when you dangle the kinds of wages they could otherwise dream of, as ISIS did, you are more. you’re more likely to get a return on your recruiting investment. And against the backdrop of sectarian issues, recruiters presented climate-related phenomena such as drought as a case for the government to pull out Sunni Muslims, rather than the effects of global conditions. For example, I met two villages in very different parts of the country, recounted instances of ISIS recruiters faking drought, cloud planting, and various geoengineering along the Iranian border. (Editor’s note: Iran and Iraq are Shia-majority countries, and these agricultural communities were largely Sunni..) It was never clear to me whether people really believed such a strange take, but at a time when the animosity ran deep, it was an effective way of presenting the wider issue.
Several chapters suggest that climate change is sometimes causing us to behave in ways we would never expect. What do we know about how climate change is shaping the way we think and feel?
Climate change is destroying, for many communities abroad, people have always retreated to the coherence of the landscape. A big part of that has been people’s sense of belonging, community and self. From temperature, to precipitation patterns, to bird migration routes, everything is affected by some form of trauma. I see this in basically every conflict-ridden climate I work in.
Of course, many people around the world experience all kinds of horrors, and they don’t end up joining terrorist groups. But when I go back to people’s villages and talk to their friends and family, I can’t help but think about doing nothing.
Another theme of the book seems to be that even small conflicts come out. Is this just the nature of climate change?
Without a doubt The other factor is that we live in a completely interdependent world, so there is no such thing as a neat, self-contained crisis. The professions most vulnerable to climate stress are agriculture, so rural areas emerge as nodes of instability. But then the booming migration from these towns to the already overburdened urban areas means that a rural crisis does not tend to remain a rural crisis. Even at the international level… one country’s climate response can easily leave another country impoverished through neglect, stupidity or outright malice.
It makes sense to focus on the poorest African countries, as they are bearing the brunt of climate change. But what are some of the ways in which climate-related violence may already manifest itself in the wealthiest countries of North America or Europe?
In Western countries, there is a fairly significant increase in basically all types of crime and violence during periods of extreme heat. For example, here in Athens, Greece, I’ve worked with women (non-governmental organizations) … between June and September there’s been about a 250 to 300 percent increase in different types of domestic violence compared to others. periods of the year Now, this is not just caused by extreme heat. However, in all the cases we have looked at, there certainly seems to be some causal connection. The frequency of shootings in the US also increases in less hospitable climates.
Even in indirect terms, much of the climate-related violence in Europe and North America is a reflection of how governments are responding to climate-related difficulties across our borders. In Europe, for example, there is a lot of violence against migrants, sometimes with the tacit or, in some cases, explicit consent of governments.
If climate-related instability is one ingredient in the recipe for conflict, what are the others? To what extent do they appear in the American context?
Corruption isn’t as much of a factor in the western context as it is in some poorer places, but it’s definitely the difference that jumps out at me. Some of the highest crime hotspots are located on the periphery between areas of wealth and areas of deprivation. One element of this is thought to be the resentment that arises when confronted with images of differences in fortunes and states’ responses. When I see reports of private firefighting units in parts of California or cases of wealthy communities erecting seawalls to divert coastal erosion to poorer communities further down the coast, I think it’s possible to see some tension in the future.
You end the book by highlighting one possible solution: environmental peacebuilding, the approach of using climate concerns as an entry point for conflict resolution, or peaceful cooperation. How successful are these efforts?
I wanted to close the book on a slightly hopeful note, partly for the sake of my sanity, but also so that the average reader might not come away even more despondent than they already (were).
Building environmental peace is something that many people in the climate world are excited about. Now, there’s a kind of cynical point of view because that seems to be why a lot of traditional peacebuilding is failing right now. However, a large part of this enthusiasm, at least at the local level, is because environmental levers (pulling) have been successful in inhibiting, and sometimes preventing, small-scale and large-scale violence. There is certainly a recognition among local communities and nation-states that environmental issues are not zero-sum and require cooperation. I think it’s a real “watch this space” situation.
