war. However, reduced ecosystem function, consequent to falling and altered
biodiversity, may interact with climate change to cause further deforestation and
ecosystem collapse, for example by the loss of ‘keystone species’ or by changing
the flowering and fruiting patterns of the tropical rainforest canopy.
There are numerous other mechanisms by which damaged environmental
‘goods and services’ may cause economic harm, and increase the risk of conflict.
Several worst-case scenarios could even lead to global conflict. These include
runaway global warming, food-scarcity associated nuclear conflict involving
South Asia or China and disruption of the North Atlantic climatic ‘conveyor
belt’. This ‘climatological service’ effectively subsidizes European civilization by
providing significant, free warming. Its loss would disrupt European agriculture
and greatly increase European energy needs. It is hard to imagine that the
technologically and militarily powerful European states would not act to protect
their vital interests. Conflict therefore seems likely.
—
The view that the risk of conflict is likely to increase because of environmental
scarcity — in part due to damage to environmental ‘goods and services’ — is not
universally held, however, and remains controversial. This view has been
criticized as not only exaggerated, but as being intrinsically harmful as the
‘various resource factors, such as access to fuels and ores, have contributed to
state capacities to wage war and achieve security from violence’. However, the
same author argues that natural disasters have always occurred, but without
threatening national security, and ‘if everything that causes a decline in human
well-being is labelled a security threat, the term loses any analytical usefulness’.
Nevertheless, we argue that a threshold has been crossed in the scale of
human-caused capacity to change the regional and global ecosystem and
climatological systems, and that this could contribute to conflict on a global
scale. Hence, it is in the rational self-interest of humanity, including its most
powerful nations, to seek to reduce these risks, including from conflict, of damage
to environmental goods and services.
4 Two Issues: Environmental ‘Global Public Goods for Health’
and Scientific Uncertainty
Defining Global Public Goods for Health
The environmental goods and services described in the earlier parts of this review
are, in many respects, quite distinct from the goods and services that are produced
and exchanged between individuals, groups and nations on a daily basis. This
distinction may be seen within the concept of ‘private’ and ‘public’ goods. ‘Private
goods’ are generally traded in the marketplace, and through various pricing
mechanisms the market dictates the volume of a good that is demanded (by the
L. M. Curran, I. Caniago, G. D. Paoli, D. Astianti, M. Kusneti, M. Leighton, C. E. Nirarita and H.
Haeruman, Science, 1999, 286, 2184.
G. Hartshorn and N. Bynum, Science, 1999, 286, 2093.
W. S. Broecker, Science, 1997, 278, 1582.
C. D. Butler, Australas. Epidemiol., 2001, 8, 13.
H. J. Schellnhuber, Nature, 1999, 402, C19.
D. Deudney, Bull. At. Sci., 1991, 47.
M. J. Ahern and A. J. McMichael
156
biodiversity, may interact with climate change to cause further deforestation and
ecosystem collapse, for example by the loss of ‘keystone species’ or by changing
the flowering and fruiting patterns of the tropical rainforest canopy.
There are numerous other mechanisms by which damaged environmental
‘goods and services’ may cause economic harm, and increase the risk of conflict.
Several worst-case scenarios could even lead to global conflict. These include
runaway global warming, food-scarcity associated nuclear conflict involving
South Asia or China and disruption of the North Atlantic climatic ‘conveyor
belt’. This ‘climatological service’ effectively subsidizes European civilization by
providing significant, free warming. Its loss would disrupt European agriculture
and greatly increase European energy needs. It is hard to imagine that the
technologically and militarily powerful European states would not act to protect
their vital interests. Conflict therefore seems likely.
—
The view that the risk of conflict is likely to increase because of environmental
scarcity — in part due to damage to environmental ‘goods and services’ — is not
universally held, however, and remains controversial. This view has been
criticized as not only exaggerated, but as being intrinsically harmful as the
‘various resource factors, such as access to fuels and ores, have contributed to
state capacities to wage war and achieve security from violence’. However, the
same author argues that natural disasters have always occurred, but without
threatening national security, and ‘if everything that causes a decline in human
well-being is labelled a security threat, the term loses any analytical usefulness’.
Nevertheless, we argue that a threshold has been crossed in the scale of
human-caused capacity to change the regional and global ecosystem and
climatological systems, and that this could contribute to conflict on a global
scale. Hence, it is in the rational self-interest of humanity, including its most
powerful nations, to seek to reduce these risks, including from conflict, of damage
to environmental goods and services.
4 Two Issues: Environmental ‘Global Public Goods for Health’
and Scientific Uncertainty
Defining Global Public Goods for Health
The environmental goods and services described in the earlier parts of this review
are, in many respects, quite distinct from the goods and services that are produced
and exchanged between individuals, groups and nations on a daily basis. This
distinction may be seen within the concept of ‘private’ and ‘public’ goods. ‘Private
goods’ are generally traded in the marketplace, and through various pricing
mechanisms the market dictates the volume of a good that is demanded (by the
L. M. Curran, I. Caniago, G. D. Paoli, D. Astianti, M. Kusneti, M. Leighton, C. E. Nirarita and H.
Haeruman, Science, 1999, 286, 2184.
G. Hartshorn and N. Bynum, Science, 1999, 286, 2093.
W. S. Broecker, Science, 1997, 278, 1582.
C. D. Butler, Australas. Epidemiol., 2001, 8, 13.
H. J. Schellnhuber, Nature, 1999, 402, C19.
D. Deudney, Bull. At. Sci., 1991, 47.
M. J. Ahern and A. J. McMichael
156