Review
“Cleo Paskal in her authoritative new book, Global Warring, How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map, uses historical examples and modern climate science to draw parallels with 21st century geopolitics which is giving rise to climatepolitics. Paskal`s extensive examination points to the uncomfortable conclusion that every country and continent will be seriously impacted by environmental changes this century. The idea that somehow the US and the rest of the developed world will be shielded from the impacts of global heating is patently false.”
- Jerry Cope, Huffington Post
“As climate change increasingly becomes part of our everyday concerns, a need has emerged for international experts to help make sense of its potential consequences. In Global Warring, journalist Cleo Paskal does exactly that. Unlike so many other books on the subject, Paskal doesn`t limit her scope to the catastrophic environmental damage that climate change could wreak. Instead, she expands her scope to provide a thorough and detailed explanation of how this looming environmental crisis will impact global security and the geopolitical status quo.
Global Warring is a pleasure to read, even though its message is distressing. It is neither a sabre-rattling activist`s rant nor a dreary policy tome, although it contains the most significant aspects of each. It is a book that makes the reader sit up and take notice and, with luck, take action.”
-- Quill & Quire
“Cleo Paskal is original and compelling; a pioneering scholar of the new terrain where environmental change confronts national security, she charts the dramatic implications not just for the game of nations but for their geographic borders, their resources and their fundamental interests.”
?Martin Walker, senior director of the Global Business Policy Council and editor-in-chief emeritus of United Press International.
“Cleo Paskal avoids the pitfall of viewing all environmental threats to security through the lens of climate change, a necessary but certainly not sufficient focus for understanding the security challenges of environmental change. Paskal sets her analysis firmly at ground level where the practical implications of environmental change are felt and policy decisions must be made to address them.”
?Geoffrey D. Dabelko, director, Environmental Change and Security Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
“Cleo Paskal’s mastery over geopolitics has been fused to a remarkable understanding of just how the coming geophysical changes may affect our planet. This is the first comprehensive view of the real consequences of environmental change.”
?M.D. Nalapat, UNESCO Peace Chair and director of the Department of Geopolitics, Manipal University, India
“In a clear, comprehensive and alarming analysis, Cleo Paskal underlines the geopolitically disruptive potential of climate change. Arguably this is the biggest challenge to human society since the Ice Age or the Black Death and it is not clear we are any readier to respond adequately to ours than were our unfortunate ancestors to theirs.”?Guy Stanley, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University.
“In a field beset by hyperbole on the one hand, and complacency on the other, Cleo Paskal’s work provides a refreshing, well-grounded and highly readable take on geopolitics and environmental change in the twenty-first century.”?Dr Jeffrey Mazo, International Institute for Strategic Studies
“Cleo Paskal’s work vividly illustrates the complex interconnections between climate change, environmental conditions, and energy security. Rather than just take a global view, she also demonstrates how environmental changes will impact the lives of people across the globe, from Arctic Canada to the South Pacific. Paskal’s unique and valuable scholarship charts the geopolitical implications of these changes for politics, and is a sobering reminder of the challenges we face.”?Dr Chad Briggs, Institute for Environmental Security
Review
Product Description
The Cold War was never this hot!
We live in interesting times. The biggest western economic institutions are crumbling, what were once marginalized voices are now dominating international negotiations, and touchstone climate events, such as the monsoon, are failing. Everywhere you look economic, geopolitical and environmental assumptions are being shaken to the core. The world is changing. Fast.
Global Warring examines these trends by combining insightful economic and political analysis with the most likely environmental change scenarios. It identifies problem areas that could start conflicts (access to water and resources in Asia), economic trends that are shifting the balance of power (China’s policy of nationalistic capitalism), and geopolitical realignments (the burgeoning strategic partnership between the United States and India).
Award-winning writer and geopolitical expert Cleo Paskal makes sense of this overwhelming topic by dividing it into five sections: how seemingly impervious western nations, such as the United States, are shockingly vulnerable to hurricanes, storm surges and rising sea levels, and what that could mean for their internal stability and economic development; how the thawing Arctic is opening up a whole new arena for power politics as some of the world’s biggest countries wrangle for control over vast resources, strategic shipping routes such as the Northwest Passage and geopolitical leverage; how changing precipitation patterns, extreme weather and water shortages are creating severe disruptions in India and China, and how that could affect their relations with each other, and the world; how rising sea levels may shift borders and alter the very notion of statehood, potentially challenging international law to the breaking point; and, finally, what could happen in coming decades, and how to avoid the worst of it.
Paskal combines ten years of research; the latest findings from the Hadley Centre and the United Nations; and interviews with top political, security and economic strategists with her own extensive travel as a foreign correspondent. The result is a penetrating, accessible, compelling, and chilling reminder that Global Warring is not only coming, it’s here.
“In a clear, comprehensive and alarming analysis, Cleo Paskal underlines the geopolitically disruptive potential of climate change. Arguably this is the biggest challenge to human society since the Ice Age or the Black Death and it is not clear we are any readier? to respond adequately to ours than were our unfortunate ancestors to theirs.”?-- Guy Stanley, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University.
