Abstract
National security agencies and other interested parties now often regard conflict as the inevitable consequence of climate change. This inclination to reduce war to the vicissitudes of climate is not new however. Here I examine some of the earlier ways in which violence was attributed to climatic conditions, particularly in the United States, and trace links between these older advocates of climatic determinism and the recent writings of those insisting that climate change will usher in a grim world of chronic warfare. It ends by drawing attention to the writings of some critics who are troubled by the ease with which climatic reductionism is capturing the public imagination.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 437-444 |
| Journal | Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 28 Jul 2015 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sep 2015 |
Keywords
- American Civil War, Arnold Toynbee, climate change, climatic determinism, Ellen Semple, Ellsworth Huntington, John W. Draper, national security, Quincy Wright, Sydney Markham, war.
Access to Document
- The climate of war: violence, warfare, and climatic reductionism
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Livingstone, D. N. (2015), The climate of war: violence, warfare, and climatic reductionism. WIREs Clim Change, 6: 437–444, which has been published in final form at doi: 10.1002/wcc.352. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
