The Age of Consequences

The effects of man-made climate change, which society in general has known for years now has been happening without doing much about it, on increasing instability and insecurity globally are discussed, including at a geopolitical and thus military level. Interviewees, many associated with the military, see climate change as a catalyst to that instability and insecurity if not exacerbating other destabilizing issues. These issues are not only the direct impacts of climate change, such as changing and more extreme weather patterns, crop failures, and rising sea level due to glacial and permafrost melt, but what is downstream from these initial effects, such as food insecurity, mass migration and the uprising of those most affected which all create those geopolitical problems. Those sounding the warning posit that humankind has not reacted to this issue as it has to other potentially catastrophic issues, some making the comparison to leaders averting nuclear war in knowing the negative consequences.