Understanding global security - Peter Hough

ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS TO SECURITY
exhaustion of fish stocks which would be to everyone’s detriment. Seeing the bigger
picture is difficult in a politically compartmentalized world but it is gradually happening
through the growth of a global civil society and epistemic communities persuading
governments and citizens that it is in their own interests to ‘think global’.
Dalby argues that the key to safeguarding human security in issues such as
climate change and resource depletion is to cease framing such problems in the
context of ‘environmental threats’. Considering human activity as an integral part
of the earth’s biosphere, rather than something related to but distinct from ‘the
environment’, is a central tenet of ecologism and its emphasis on giving greater value
to non-human life forms, but can be understood also as a means of preserving the
human species. Dalby defines security in terms of a referent object which is the global
totality: ‘the assurance of relatively undisturbed ecological systems in all parts of the
biosphere’ (Dalby 2002: 106). Thinking in terms of ecological rather than environmental
change means that social and economic transformations are not treated as
distinct from atmospheric or biological developments in terms of their consequences.
Appreciating that human phenomena such as urbanization or increasing consumption
have effects in the natural world with implications for human security, can
improve the management of threats. Security threats can be more subtle than the
rapid emergence of a hole in the ozone layer and the solutions more complex than
switching from the use of CFCs to replacement chemicals. A better appreciation of
this complexity could help alleviate these difficulties before they become imminent.
Ecologism might be a minority ideology in today’s world, but most democratic
states have political systems that have evolved over time to act in the public good even
where this incurs some individual or commercial cost. US environmental policy is
robust enough to restrain business interests for the good of the environment and
society even though its government has not always behaved this way on the global
stage. There is no reason to suppose that global environmental policy cannot evolve
in a similar manner.
• The threat to human security posed by environmental change is mainly an
indirect one, by heightening vulnerability to other threats like disease, or a
long-term potential one.
• This lack of imminent threat has limited the development of global environmental
policy much beyond acting against obvious threats like global warming
and ozone depletion.
• The notion that environmental scarcity can prompt military conflicts has
attracted much attention in recent years but the case is not proven.
• Tackling many environmental problems necessitates international or global
action, exposing the limitations of the sovereign state system as a means of
enhancing human security.
Key points
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