In the Heat of the Moment (the re-post)

The following was published Dec. 2, 2014, on the WWF ClimatePrep blog (climateprep.org) -- which now appears to have gone defunct. You can still see the original on Archive.org. See my blog post about the writing of this article here.
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Photo by Kim Seng © Creative Commons

Many of us are versed in the primary hazards of climate change – from the cost of disasters in lives and resources to the disappearance of low-lying island nations. Something we hear about less often is the direct influence of climate on human behavior, and the implications for the future under climate change.

Climate change and civil conflict

Academics have only been putting the climate change-conflict link to close examination for about five years. Solomon Hsiang (UC Berkeley), Marshall Burke (Stanford), and Edward (Ted) Miguel (UC Berkeley) are pioneers in this field. Last year they unveiled the results of an analysis of 60 studies using 45 data sets from all regions of the world showing a correlation between heat, rain, and conflict. Last month they released a refinement of this study. In their working paper “Climate and Conflict” (summary here) they show significant increases in both interpersonal and intergroup conflicts (e.g., fist fights and wars) with greater heat and more extreme rainfall.

Some of the background studies cited by these researchers include a 2011 study that shows major league baseball pitchers are more likely to retaliate for their teammates being hit by the rival pitcher when it’s hotter. In their talk “Quantifying the Impact of Climate on Human Conflict” at UC Berkeley in April 2013, Miguel and Burke described fascinating experimental psychology studies showing that police are more likely to shoot at a simulated intruder in higher temperature rooms, and people are faster to lean on their horns behind a car stopped at a green light on hotter days.

Climate change and crime

In February of this year a journal article by Matthew Ranson described a correlation between crime and weather and speculated on the potential impact of climate change on crime. The author looked at 2,997 U.S. counties’ monthly crime and weather data over 30 years. He looked at FBI statistics for murder, manslaughter, rape, aggravated and simple assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft. He states bluntly, “[a]cross a variety of offenses, higher temperatures cause more crime.” His rich data set appears to have established a strong link between heat and violent crime. Specifically, he shows a linear relationship between heat and violent crime and a nonlinear relationship with non-violent crime (property crime, e.g., burglary): he doesn’t see heat affecting property crime in any consistent way. Heat specifically exacerbates violence.

Measuring vulnerability to climate-related violence

Some analysts are trying to map out the world’s general vulnerability to climate-related violence. On Oct. 29, 2014, the 2015 “Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas” was released, naming 32 “extreme risk” countries where climate change might increase violence. Bangladesh was named most at risk. The author of the report, UK-based Maplecroft Global Risk Analytics, has produced this atlas annually since 2008. In 2011, its report included results of an analysis of 42 factors using the Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI), intended to help corporations and governments identify vulnerabilities in their operations, supply chains, and investments. (Note: it is not to be confused with the tool of the same name launched by the Nature Conservancy in 2009 to evaluate wild species’ vulnerability.) Maplecroft’s tool incorporates social, economic, and environmental factors to assess vulnerability both at a national level and down to a resolution of 22km², looking 30 years out (as described in the 2014 Risk Atlas).

Over recent years other indices of vulnerability have been created (check out an annotated list of indices of climate change vulnerability from WeAdapt.org). Other institutions have taken other approaches to identifying climate-driven violence risks.

The Pentagon and the Institute of Peace agree: climate change is bad for peace

As reported by James West in Mother Jones, the U.S. Department of Defense (in its 20-page Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap released Oct. 13, 2014) and the U.S. Institute of Peace (in a 2011 report on Nigeria) are both worrying about weak governments, already fostering terrorism, being further weakened by impacts from climate change. While lacking adaptation policy recommendations, both institutions clearly and concisely describe the “threat-multiplier” facet of climate change.

What can we do?

People developing climate impact response plans in the security, defense, and risk management fields should take into account the results of recent studies linking climate change and conflict. Extreme climate events can be tracked and direct and immediate security fallout projected. Also, the still under-researched indirect and long-term impacts of climate on conflict—such as a heat wave destroying a farming community’s livelihood, driving the community’s young men to migrate, potentially inflaming territorial and sectarian violence— can also be projected and anticipated by security and defense forces.

A very readable 2007 journal article by Barnett and Adger discusses the underlying causes of conflict and how climate change could drive conflict. They propose a basic 3-prong research regime of identifying livelihoods vulnerable to climate hazards, examining the consequences of damage to these livelihoods, and understanding the role of institutions in managing climate hazards so that they do not become security problems (e.g., by protecting livelihoods).

Who else should pay attention to climate’s link to conflict?

Those working on economic, social and international development policy, human rights organizations, and those working in the capacity of a negotiator should anticipate the impact of extreme heat and other climate stressors on their constituents, both individuals and communities. People working in the field of restorative justice and other disciplines focused on reducing violence and criminalization of historically disadvantaged communities should also track the effect of climate stressors on their project outcomes, and adapt programs accordingly. Those working for non-violent solutions within urban conflict zones might ramp up their mediation efforts in particularly hot summers.

You also can watch your own behavior in response to climate-induced stress. On the next hot day you might take a second to breathe before honking at a car stopped at a green light… you might just be behind an experimental psychologist with a stopwatch.

Batten Down the Hatches: Double El Niño is Trouble for Public Health

Since January I've been seeing articles about a second El Niño forming in the Pacific, expected to bring buckets of rain to the U.S. west coast this winter. The historic drought we're having here in California makes this sound like a godsend. I only hear the coming deluge discussed in positive terms. Or a marketing opportunity: a friend moving out of the area just posted her rain boots for sale with the tag "El Niño is coming!"

Obviously natural disasters like immense storms and floods pose a direct physical threat to people and their homes. For a risk-minded person, an image like this might come to mind at the mention of the upcoming intense El Niño:

Source: U.S. Navy. Hurricane Katrina rescue.

But there are less obvious dangers from the oncoming Double El Niño that should be included in risk calculations. First, let's remind ourselves the defining characteristics of this phenomenon.

El Niño is just a rainy winter, right?

El Niño is when the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean water gets warmer and air pressure gets lower, part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which alternates with La Niña (when the eastern equatorial Pacific waters cool and air pressure gets higher). Usually, as the water warms more moisture goes into the atmosphere and creates more storms. So, the primary impact associated with El Niño in the U.S. is more storms on the west coast.

An El Niño was declared in 2014, but the warm water/more storms connection turned out to be weak. The energy from the warm water is just "sitting there," according to Kevin Trenberth of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in a March 2015 "Living on Earth" piece from PRI.

The NOAA Climate Prediction Center declared in July:

There is a greater than 90% chance that El Niño will continue through Northern Hemisphere winter 2015-16, and around an 80% chance it will last into early spring 2016.

Trenberth said in the PRI piece of the pending Double El Niño: "this could mean more than a few months of odd weather, but instead usher in a new phase of climate change."

Perhaps as a result of the congestion from not releasing the energy from the 2014 warming cycle, current sea surface temperatures indicate an El Niño as strong as the record-breaking one in 1997-1998. However, NOAA meteorologist, Michelle L’Heureux, points out that the two El Niño's early indicators don't line up exactly ("Keep calm and stop obsessing over weekly changes in ENSO" - July 7, 2015), and in a July 23 Scientific American article she is quoted as saying "we cannot find a single El Niño event that tracked like another El Niño event."

But even if this El Niño doesn't live up to the hype, meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote last October "a longer-term climate signal is beginning to point in the direction of more frequent bursts of warming over the next several years."

On top of that, a parallel system, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), is warming the northeastern Pacific. (Look at the bottom of this University of Washington chart of sea surface temperature anomalies in the North Pacific and it looks like the PDO is in full swing.)

Will California be Singing in the Rain?

Who knows? No two El Niños are the same, as pointed out by meteorologist Michelle L’Heureux above. 

We might have yet another dry winter because of "the Blob": a warm water/high pressure ridge combination lingering off the coast of California blocking incoming storms. (For more info read El Niño vs. the Blob: which will win out this winter? - from the KPCC science desk, Aug. 10, 2015, including a 1:22 animation explaining their different effects.)

Then there is the salient point that "El Niño rains can come like a wrecking ball," brought up in a July 30, 2015, opinion piece by one climate change adaptation planner, AECOM's Josh Sawislak. He questions the readiness of the state's infrastructure if the predicted floods do come.

While California hopes for and dreads a winter of floods, other places will have to brace for drought and fire. In the southwest Pacific, they await dry conditions. East Australia is expecting dangerous bushfire conditions (check out this Sydney Morning Herald article from May 2015 describing expected El Niño impacts in Australia this winter, with a bonus 2-minute cartoon explaining the phenomenon).

Beyond the direct public safety risks from wildfire and flood, why should people worry about El Niño's impact on public health?

El Niño and Disease

Drought and Meningitis

Historically, a strong El Niño has brought drought and famine to the Sahel region of Africa, and researchers are now drawing connections between the weather pattern and specific diseases. In July 2015, a Nigerian doctor O. Oluwole published findings correlating the increase of meningococcal meningitis epidemics in the Sahel with strong El Niños. This supports previous findings that high dust and wind (which accompany drought) correlate with meningitis outbreaks in the so-called "meningitis belt" (stretching across the Sahel from Senegal to Ethiopia) where "major epidemics of lethal meningitis are routine" (The Guardian, March 25, 2014). With these findings, vaccination campaigns can be stepped up in preparation.

Floods and Stunted Growth

In November 2014, researchers at Johns Hopkins published findings showing that children born during and shortly after the 1997-1998 El Niño event in Northern Peru, which brought heavy coastal flooding, were "on average shorter and had less lean mass for their age and sex than expected had El Niño not occurred."

The study's lead researcher, William Checkley told Mother Jones magazine that the findings align with previous findings about El Niño's public health consequences: increased risk of infection, social and emotional stress, and increased risk of contracting infectious diarrheal and respiratory diseases from flooding and heat. All of this combined could easily harm a child's development.

El Niño and War

Solomon Hsiang, an economist who studies the impact of climate change on conflict, together with  K. Meng and M. Cane, found "the probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics doubles during El Niño years relative to La Niña years" according to data from 1950 to 2004 (Nature, 2011). Another researcher who looks at the connection of weather and conflict, Marshall Burke, suggested that the findings could lead to governments of countries with high risk of extreme heat or drought during El Niño "putt[ing] in place measures and safety nets to try to reduce the risk of conflict in that year." Or, the approach of El Niño could at least put international rescue and refugee organizations on notice to step up their fundraising efforts in advance.

All I can say is batten down the hatches.

More information:

• Is my country at risk from El Niño?

This October 2012 Daily Mail UK piece shows historical global distribution of flood damage from El Niño, using maps from the Global Change Institute in Amsterdam.

• NOAA's real-time sea surface temperature maps

El Niño and "the Blob" are both visible in the Pacific if you look at the anomalies map-- the second map down. 

• NOAA's El Niño Portal

With a link to the ENSO Blog.

In the Heat of the Moment

Check out my newest post at the WWF Climate Prep blog: In the Heat of the Moment, discussing recently released evidence on the connection between heat and violence, and implications for society and security under climate change.

Shout out to UC Berkeley professors Sol Hsiang - now teaching at my alma mater the Goldman School of Public Policy - and CEGA's Ted Miguel for their great research on these topics!

CEGA is the Center for Effective Global Action, which focuses on using quantitative impact evaluation methods to improve results of poverty alleviation programs in the international development field. When I was at GSPP I took a student-led course on impact evaluation, taught by students working at CEGA, and the problems we addressed were along the lines of how to ethically roll out an experimental vaccination or disease testing program. It's great to see those big brains being bent to the task of assessing possible disparate climate change impacts on CEGA's constituency-- the world's poorest communities.

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Update: WWF's ClimatePrep blog apparently went defunct in 2018 and may not be revived.  I'm updating this blog's links to ClimatePrep to snapshots on Archive.org (where available). Some articles look OK there, some not so OK. For a readable version with images intact, see my ClimatePrep articles as reconstructed on this blog:

• Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog
June 08, 2017

• Story Maps: A Rising Star of Climate Change Communication
April 10, 2017

• The Sea Level Rise Solution that is as Charismatic as Mud
February 17, 2017

• The Internet of Water - October 31, 2016

• Sea Level Rise Seen with New Eyes: the OWLs of San Mateo
August 30, 2016

• California: The Rebeavering
May 22, 2015

• Government Folly in the Face of Climate Change
March 19, 2015

• In the Heat of the Moment
December 02, 2014

• California’s Adaptation Clarion Call
September 02, 2014

• Farmland in Flux
July 8, 2014

• Honest Conversations: Climate Change and Uncertainty
December 12, 2013

News from the Human Rights/Climate Change Nexus: +Heat = +Native Cultural Losses, +Conflict

The Dec. 18, 2013, Al-Jazeera article "How climate change destroys human rights" by Jon Letman offers an interesting sampler plate of five recent studies and organizing efforts to illustrate the human rights/climate change nexus.

ARCTIC LOSS, NATIVE CULTURAL LOSSES

The Letman article was brought to my attention by a friend and former colleague, now at Tebtebba, because another friend and former colleague, Rodion Syulandziga from the Russian indigenous rights network RAIPON, contributed to it. (Click here for info on RAIPON in English, from the Arctic Council's website.)

Rodion points out to Letman that "[i]ncreasingly unpredictable weather and unreliable sea ice directly impacts animal migration, which affects subsistence hunting for traditional food sources like reindeer and sea mammals. Warmer temperatures ... also hasten the introduction of plant and animal diseases as southern species of fish and birds move north." And, "[i]n addition to a warming Arctic, Russia’s indigenous peoples also face the rush to exploit vast energy and mineral resources. Oil, gas, coal, nickel, iron ore, platinum and other minerals draw multi-national corporations to Russia’s most remote regions where highly restricted access makes monitoring health and safety practices, damage and pollution mitigation and other conditions difficult or impossible."

Rodion also touches on how RAIPON is being subjected to increasing threats from the Russian government. In 2012-2013 this involved using technicalities of the law to suspend the group's activities during a critical period of time (when a national RAIPON gathering was supposed to happen), ordering the arrest of a staff member on specious grounds when he was abroad at a conference, and using political pressure to increase the influence of Kremlin-friendly indigenous representatives in the organization. Indigenous communities whose cultures are predicated on the existence of permafrost and sea ice are existentially threatened by climate change, and in Russia, also by the government's repression of civil society.

MORE HEAT, MORE CONFLICT

I see another familiar reference in this article-- a link to a study of how heat correlates with aggression in Kenya, led by Solomon Hsiang, now a professor at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, my alma mater. He did the study with Ted Miguel of the UC Berkeley-based Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), which analyzes the impact of development projects, and Marshall Burke, also at UC Berkeley (in Ag and Resource Economics). The study supports the idea demonstrated in other studies "that climatic events which produce temporary warming are associated with a temporary increase in violent intergroup conflict..." (p. 2). Sol Hsiang has a fascinating body of work on the social implications of climate threats.

• See his personal website's list of publications
• See his list of publications and press coverage of his research at GSPP's website

Some highlights of Sol's work:

• Click here for a six and a half-minute interview where he summarizes some of his findings on heat's correlation with aggression for the PBS Newshour from August 2013.

• Read Climate, conflict, and social stability:what does the evidence say? - a compelling meta-analysis of 50 studies published in 2013 with M. Burke, which finds a possible "causal association between climatological changes and various conflict outcomes..." 

Other studies/articles referenced in the Letman article:

• The projected timing of climate departure from recent variability (Mora et al., October 2013, Nature) - showing how parts of the tropics may experience unprecedented climates within the next 10 years, and how, if GHG emissions aren't brought under control, the "average" place on Earth will experience a radically different climate within the next 35 years.
• A 2012 Human Rights Watch publication on the health impacts of Bangladesh's tanneries, in part authored by Richard Pearshouse, an HRW researcher interviewed by Letman; and a 2009 article on Bangladesh's climate refugees (L. Friedman, Scientific American)

Climate Change, Russia's Fires and the Present Uprising in Egypt

When Russia's fires last year led to the curtailing of wheat exports, it was predicted that world food prices would spike and inflame political conflict.

Climate events inflating food prices is just one example of how climate change is going to drive political conflict. Water and energy are also going to see price spikes that drive conflict.

Right now as we watch Egyptians struggle to transition from totalitarianism to democracy, remember that one of the main sparks behind this revolution was not some new societal level of enlightenment, but a new level of desperation driven by food prices.

On Feb. 3, 2011, PRI's Peter Thomson wrote about the Russia fire/ wheat scarcity/ revolution connection.

From "High food prices in Egypt and climate change":

Food price inflation in Egypt was over 20 percent last year. In particular, there’s been a big squeeze from the rising global price of wheat. New York global investment manager Vincent Truglia says depending on how you measure it, the price of wheat went up between 50 and 70 percent in 2010.
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Egypt is among the world’s largest importers of wheat, and the global wheat market received a number of nasty shocks recently. The worst came last summer, when Russia was hit by an unprecedented drought and heat wave that destroyed 40 percent of its wheat harvest.

Russia abruptly banned exports, and Egypt, which had just signed a big wheat deal with Russia, was left scrambling.

The Egyptian government has tried to keep a lid on wheat prices through subsidies and rationing. But Truglia says anxiety over food prices is the key problem facing Egypt today.

And some look further up the chain of events, and trace the problem at least in part to climate change.

“I think we are seeing some of the early effects of climate change on food security,” says veteran environmental analyst Lester Brown, of the Earth Policy Institute. In particular, Brown says the heat wave that led to the collapse of Russia’s wheat harvest was no ordinary weather event.

“If someone had told me that there was likely to be a heat wave in Russia in which the average temperature would be 14 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm — that’s pushing the envelope. I mean FOUR degrees would be a lot.”
[...]


Vicken Checherian, writing for Opendemocracy.net, wrote on Jan. 26, 2011 (The Arab Crisis: Food, Energy, Water, Justice), about other nearby countries taking measures to try to prevent food price-driven revolution: "Even Saudi Arabia is taking precautions; the kingdom aims to double its wheat reserves to 1.4 million tons, enough to satisfy demand for a year." He also points out that food price-driven revolution hasn't historically led to democracy in the region:

The rise of food and energy prices sparked popular demonstrations in Algeria in 1988 and Jordan in 1989. When the authorities could not suppress the demonstrations by pure repression, and could not reduce the prices for lack of means, they chose to open up a closed political system: single-party rule was ended in Algeria in 1989, and in Jordan restrictions on the media and the work of political parties were lifted. In neither case did this political opening lead to sustainable institutions and democratisation: Algeria eventually degenerated into a fratricidal war, Jordan recalled the old habits once the wave of contestation died down.

Let's hope for a better outcome for Egypt.