Environmental Security is Homeland Security: Climate Disruption as the Ultimate Disaster Risk Multiplier

Abstract

There are several important linkages among environmental hazards and crises caused (at least in part) by human‐caused global warming, and both homeland security and national security risk analysis and practice. Increasingly robust research has demonstrated (1) anthropogenic climate change and its interaction with other human environmental pressures (population, pollution, and resource consumption growth); (2) worsening climate disruption patterns and disaster projections, showing long‐range risk to the very survival of human civilization; and (3) links among environmental hazards, human economic and political instability, and development of political violence. This paper discusses how and why environmental security (ES) and homeland security (HS) are linked, including the threat‐multiplying aspect of climate disruption risk factors; briefly contextualizes their growing interconnectedness in both theory and policy practice; and reviews some of what is most recently known about the science of climate disruption. It reviews disaster mitigation and resilient adaptation policy implications of climate variables such as extreme heat and drought, extreme storms, sea level rise, ocean ecosystem damage, and food and water crises. Most U.S. government security‐related organizations now incorporate HS‐ES mission statements, but current environmental security risk management and planning investment is insufficient, and burdened by political obstruction and costly scientific uncertainties.

Analysis of Potential Future Climate and Climate Extremes in the Brazos Headwaters Basin, Texas

“…Climate change poses serious risks to the environment and human livelihood [1,2]. With anticipated changes in climate and increased climate variability, severe droughts and recurrent floods are becoming more frequent throughout the world [3].…”

“…With anticipated changes in climate and increased climate variability, severe droughts and recurrent floods are becoming more frequent throughout the world [3]. Projected increases in climate extremes (e.g., heat waves and severe snowstorms) are expected to result in serious health problems [1,4,5]. The hydrologic cycle is adversely affected by climate change, especially shifts in spatial and temporal rainfall distribution and intensity [6,7].…”

Climate change and homeland security nexus: Proposal for a comprehensive conceptual framework

“…In studying domestic security implications of climate change in the U.S. context, several U.S. homeland security scholars have employed different conceptual models/frameworks to explain the nexus between environmental factors (including climate change) and homeland security (see e.g., Butts, 2014;Lanicci & Ramsay, 2014;Lanicci et al, 2017;O'Sullivan, 2015;Ramsay & O'Sullivan, 2013). It is also important to note here that, in the specific case of climate-security nexus, most of these frameworks borrow heavily from dominant mainstream environmental security frameworks particularly the ''resource scarcity model'' and ''threat multiplier model'' (Adger et al, 2014;Homer-Dixon, 1999).…”

A comparative analysis of social vulnerability and proximity to coal‐fired power plants and windmill farms

“…Furthermore, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) (2020a) estimates that 95 gigawatts of coal capacity were closed or switched to another fuel between 2011 and mid‐2020. Concerns regarding greenhouse gas emissions and climate change have further influenced the decline of coal and the rise of renewable energy (Gerber, 2014; O'Sullivan, 2015). Squalli (2017) estimates that a 10% increase in renewable energy share decreases methane emissions by about 0.26%.…”