Anthropogenic Climate Change and Genocide

     Human-made climate change is one of the most pressing issues of the present. Increases in average global temperatures will stress worldwide production of foodstuffs, increase the severity of weather phenomena such as hurricanes and forest fires, and exacerbate conflicts in areas experiencing basic resource shortages. Global consumerism, which deifies the production and accumulation of energy-intensive products, is inherently incompatible with transitioning to post-fossil fuel societies, and plays a large part in driving climate change. In addition, cultural mores associated with mass consumerism contributes to people's complacency by attaching their perceived happiness with their material wealth. The projected rise in the global human population is also worrisome considering hundreds of millions of people a year now suffering from starvation will only grow. In spite of the fact that anthropogenic global warming has been an accepted scientific theory since the early 1970s, few significant steps have been taken by corporations, governments, and communities to avert long-term damage to the Earth's biosphere.

     Many scientists, journalists, historians, and politicians, amongst many other groups, have discussed why climate change occurs and why the global community has responded with idleness in the face of dire consequences. However, I have never heard of a movie, documentary, scientific article, interview, or any other medium which has discussed how global warming is related to genocidal acts. Despite the fact that global warming and genocide seem to be disparate ideas, I think that there are several commonalities between them which merit further examination. Many structural mechanisms which drive modern consumerism, such as international corporations, aggressive advertisement campaigns and lobbies, and economic hegemony through cultural imperialism, simultaneously contribute to genocidal acts and climate change. In a business environment where transnational companies are concerned almost exclusively with short-term profits, such corporations not only are unconcerned about environmental protection and the integrity of local cultural, religious, or ethnic peoples, but such positions are antithetical to making the largest possible profit. In order to remain competitive, access to natural resources, building factories, acquiring labor, and selling products has to be as cheap as possible. Since respecting indigenous populations and sustainably consuming natural resources is more expensive than typical practices, which include economically subjugating local groups and compromising their cultural values through the dissemination of consumerist culture, corporations will continue to use methods that will meet their bottom line.

     Through the use of mass advertisement campaigns, the social mores of local groups can be incrementally altered to mirror the values of external cultural groups. Interestingly, the combination of long-term economic instability through resource depletion and imposing foreign cultural mores upon local groups not only drives the global economy by increasing production of material goods, but it also forces those producing such products to consume within this larger international trading network. This process is remarkably similar to Raphael Lemkin's description of genocide: “Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor.” Moreover, shortages of food, water, and other essential natural resources, which will become more pronounced as climate change worsens, are a significant contributing factor to genocidal rhetoric and acts. Other stress conditions, such as economic stagnation and/or decline, monetary devaluation, wars, and mass migrations, will likely increase the employment of hateful speech and violent behaviors with greater frequency and in areas where they have not been prevalent in recent memory. The increasing severity of dangerous weather events attributed in recent years to climate change will also contribute to destabilizing communities, governments, and regions by making it more difficult to grow sufficient amounts of crops to feed everyone.

     Genocidal and anthropogenic climatic phenomena are very distinctive from one another. They are incredibly multidisciplinary, and as such are poorly defined and prone to misinterpretation. In spite of this, there are sufficient commonalities between these phenomena that I think they should be talked about and researched in the interest of creating a balanced discourse. Climate change has the very real potential to trigger future genocides. As such, if there are those who want to prevent such events from occurring, they need look no further than addressing human-caused global warming to discourage many of the factors which can lead to genocidal rhetoric and actions in the present and the future.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/noam-chomsky-fate-humanity-stake-why-are-romney-and-obama-too-cowardly-talk-about-what

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2011/07/201172291544171908.html

http://www.alternet.org/environment/why-capitalism-not-population-our-greatest-environmental-threat

“Defining Genocide”, Ann Curthoys and John Docker