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PEACE, VIOLENCE AND INEQUALITY IN A CLIMATE DISRUPTED WORLD
© Simon Dalby
Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies
Balsillie School of International Affairs
Wilfrid Laurier University
Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Global Studies,
University of Victoria, 2018-19
sdalby@gmail.com
@Geopolsimon
Paper for a University of Maryland conference on “The Future of Humanity: The Challenge of
Global Peace and Security”, 16-17 October 2018. (http://bahaichair.umd.edu/peaceandsecurity)
ABSTRACT
The relatively new scholarly focus on the interactions of globalization and environmental change
in the discussion of the Anthropocene highlight the new context for both human conflicts and
peacemaking. They pose daunting questions for scholarly disciplines that can no longer take the
geographical situation of their research for granted. In particular rapid change is now both a
matter of economic development and climate disruptions and their interrelatedness. The big
question for security scholars has been, “Will climate change cause conflict?” but this now needs
to be superseded by a focus on a broader series of questions about institutions and adaptation that
get beyond simple notions of resilience as the ability to bounce back after disruptions. In the
climate disrupted world we are making, more profound questions of how to peacefully transition
to a post-carbon fueled civilization need urgent attention. This research cannot avoid tackling the
huge economic discrepancies that globalization has wrought, but has to do so sensitive to the
specific ways these play out in diverse but interconnected locales.
This paper draws from a larger research project on “Borders in Globalization” funded by the
Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (895-2012-1020). Thanks also to
Cara Stewart for monitoring media commentaries on the themes in this paper.