Climate change linked to civil war in Africa

[Aurora]

The Ecologist - 25/11/09

Higher temperatures cause declines in crop yields and 'economic welfare' which increases the risk of conflict

Climate change is likely to increase the risk of conflict in African countries over the next 20 years, says a US study.

Research led by the University of California Berkeley looked back at two decades of fluctuations in temperature and civil war across the continent.

They found that a 1°C increase in temperature correlated with a 4.5 per cent increase in civil war violence in the same year and a 0.9 per cent increase in conflict incidence in the next year.

When the researchers restricted their analysis to look just at countries that have a history of conflict, the 1°C rise in temperatures led to a 49 per cent increase in civil violence.

Article continues ...

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Cobblers, warfare is the nature of the place and has been for thousands of years.

[Eternal Sunshine]

That's a bit of a generalisation Haggis, and could be argued to largely be the result of colonialisation, and then continued foreign interest in African nations' resources?

And I notice the USA and UK are quite warfaring nations, just that they prefare to war off their own soil. Too civilised to do it at home?

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Nope, the tribes were at war long before the white man arrived and even genocide common when the west African cattle farming tribes decimated the southern african hunter gatherers as they pushed south...

Be that as it may, nobody else seems to have inhabited the region until Bantu-speaking, black African pastoralists began moving down into the subcontinent from West and Central Africa sometime around the first century AD. The result seems to have been a classic pattern of cultural displacement – aggressive pastoralists encounter peaceful hunter–gatherers (the Bushmen, like many hunter–gatherer societies, have no warrior tradition at all), and clear them from the land as they would the game, killing the men, taking the women as concubines and gradually assimilating the indigenous culture into their own.

As proof of this, ethnologists cite the tonal clicks, which originate in Bushman language, that are currently used among Southern Africa’s Bantu nations, as well as shamanic healing and rain-making traditions still found among both Bushman and Bantu groups. There are also many eyewitness accounts from early white hunter/explorers, such as Selous and Baines, of deliberate genocidal and slave-raiding expeditions being carried out against San/Bushmen by Bantu groups, such as the Ndebele, Zulu and BaTswana, as late as the 19th and early 20th centuries.

source...

The liberation groups have been spouting the lie that before the Europeans turned up they all lived in harmony and peace, simply not true.

[biffvernon]

Unlike Europe, which has enjoyed uninterrrupted peace and harmony for two thousand years.

(Why isn't there an irony emoticon yet?)

[Eternal Sunshine]

Haggis, it isn't only Africans who behave in this way though, is it?

I would argue that colonialism, and now neo colonialism, has compounded the problems and increased conflict. Or are you saying that Western influence reduced conflict in Africa?

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Haggis, it isn't only Africans who behave in this way though, is it?

Tribal warfare on the scale of Rwanda, yes most definitely.

I would argue that colonialism, and now neo colonialism, has compounded the problems and increased conflict. Or are you saying that Western influence reduced conflict in Africa?

I didn't say that. Africa will be consumed by war as long as there is any sort of tribal/religious/resource/power issue between groups of people.

[Eternal Sunshine]

Haggis, it isn't only Africans who behave in this way though, is it?

Tribal warfare on the scale of Rwanda, yes most definitely.

And Germany in the 1940s. And Cambodia, and more places than I can be bothered to mention right now.

[Ludwig]

Haggis, it isn't only Africans who behave in this way though, is it?

Tribal warfare on the scale of Rwanda, yes most definitely.

And Germany in the 1940s. And Cambodia, and more places than I can be bothered to mention right now.

You seem to be wilfully misreading Haggis's posts. All he's saying is that tribal warfare has always been particularly prevalent in Africa. Indeed that might explain why sub-Saharan Africa's civilisations never advanced as far as those of other continents: regular small-scale bloody conflicts are always going to divert attention and manpower from more constructive long-term goals.

It is very PC to make out that all Africa's problems are of the West's making, but they are not. I think it is a perfectly credible argument that since the end of the European empires, most of Africa has simply reverted to type. Of course, where important resources have been at stake, we have supported corrupt regimes (e.g. Sudan IIRC); but fundamental cultural attitudes are remarkably resilient.

Another problem - or so I've heard from people who know more about these things than I do - is that many/most African cultures have a different notion of morality to ours. Essentially, there is no abstract concept of individual conscience - an action is only wrong if other people find out about it. One can see how this attitude might encourage violence as a way of settling matters.

[biffvernon]

All he's saying is that tribal warfare has always been particularly prevalent in Africa.

That may be true but I don't think the case has been made here. Whether one looks just at the last century or the longer view of the last 2000 years, Europe and Asia have been pretty querulous continents. Has it been better or worse than Africa?

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Haggis, it isn't only Africans who behave in this way though, is it?

Tribal warfare on the scale of Rwanda, yes most definitely.

And Germany in the 1940s. And Cambodia, and more places than I can be bothered to mention right now.

Since when is Cambodia in the west? Seeing as how you were talking about Western influences...

Anyway, my point is, climate change will not influence violence in Africa. There are far more areas and reasons for conflict.

[Eternal Sunshine]

I was saying that these kind of conflicts are not confined to Africa.

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

then you're missing the point, tribal warfare has just always been that way.