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The Earth's human population is expected to pass eight billion by the year 2025, while rapid growth in the global economy will spur ever increasing demands for natural resources. The world will consequently face growing scarcities of such vital renewable resources as cropland, fresh water, and forests. Thomas Homer-Dixon argues in this sobering book that these environmental scarcities will have profound social consequences—contributing to insurrections, ethnic clashes, urban unrest, and other forms of civil violence, especially in the developing world. Homer-Dixon synthesizes work from a wide range of international research projects to develop a detailed model of the sources of environmental scarcity. He refers to water shortages in China, population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and land distribution in Mexico, for example, to show that scarcities stem from the degradation and depletion of renewable resources, the increased demand for these resources, and/or their unequal distribution. He shows that these scarcities can lead to deepened poverty, large-scale migrations, sharpened social cleavages, and weakened institutions. And he describes the kinds of violence that can result from these social effects, arguing that conflicts in Chiapas, Mexico and ongoing turmoil in many African and Asian countries, for instance, are already partly a consequence of scarcity.

  As the human population grows and environmental damage progresses, policymakers will have less and less capacity to intervene to keep this damage from producing serious social disruption such as shifts in the balance of power between countries and even war.

The Earth's human population is expected to pass eight billion by the year 2025, while rapid growth in the global economy will spur ever increasing demands for natural resources. The world will consequently face growing scarcities of such vital renewable resources as cropland, fresh water, and forests. Thomas Homer-Dixon argues in this sobering book that these environmental scarcities will have profound social consequences--contributing to insurrections, ethnic clashes, urban unrest, and other forms of civil violence, especially in the developing world. Homer-Dixon synthesizes work from a wide range of international research projects to develop a detailed model of the sources of environmental scarcity. He refers to water shortages in China, population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and land distribution in Mexico, for example, to show that scarcities stem from the degradation and depletion of renewable resources, the increased demand for these resources, and/or their unequal distribution. He shows that these scarcities can lead to deepened poverty, large-scale migrations, sharpened social cleavages, and weakened institutions. And he describes the kinds of violence that can result from these social effects, arguing that conflicts in Chiapas, Mexico and ongoing turmoil in many African and Asian countries, for instance, are already partly a consequence of scarcity. Homer-Dixon is careful to point out that the effects of environmental scarcity are indirect and act in combination with other social, political, and economic stresses. He also acknowledges that human ingenuity can reduce the likelihood of conflict, particularly in countries with efficient markets, capable states, and an educated populace. But he argues that the violent consequences of scarcity should not be underestimated--especially when about half the world's population depends directly on local renewables for their day-to-day well-being. In the next decades, he writes, growing scarcities will affect billions of people with unprecedented severity and at an unparalleled scale and pace. Clearly written and forcefully argued, this book will become the standard work on the complex relationship between environmental scarcities and human violence.

Reviews cases which show that scarcity of natural resources causes sub-national conflict; focus on cropland, water, forests, and fish; international perspective. Concerns scarcity resulting from environmental degradation and depletion, population growth, and unequal resource distribution.

  In the future, violent conflict fueled by scarce resources such as cropland, water and forest supplies may spread beyond the borders of impoverished countries.

  Homer-Dixon comments upon Levy's article, which challenged the analytical usefulness of the effort to link environmental issues and security issues. Levy replies.

Discussion of the relationship between population growth, natural resource scarcity, and prosperity dates back to Confucius and Plato. But vigorous debate began only with the writings of the British clergyman and economist Thomas Malthus in the late eighteenth century. At some risk of oversimplification, I identify three main positions in today’s version of this debate, two of which I have already highlighted in the previous chapter.¹ As noted there, neo-Malthusians, who are often biologists or ecologists, claim that finite natural resources place strict limits on the growth of human population and consumption; if these limits are exceeded, poverty and social

Societies may be able to alter the processes linking human activity, environmental scarcity, and violence. If they wish to prevent severe environmental scarcity, they need to understand and act on its precursor ideational and physical variables. If they wish to promote nondisruptive adaptation to scarcity, they need to understand and act on the links between environmental scarcity and its negative social effects, including impoverishment, migrations, and the like. And if they wish to prevent conflict (even though scarcity and its negative social effects may be severe), they need to understand and act on the links between the negative social effects

As we have seen in previous chapters, natural resources can be roughly divided into two groups: nonrenewables, like oil and minerals, and renewables, like freshwater, forests, fertile soils, and Earth’s ozone layer. A nonrenewable consists of astock, which is the total quantity of the resource available for consumption. A renewable resource has both a stock and aflow, which is the incremental addition to, or restoration of, the stock per unit of time.¹ Surprisingly, many of the participants in the long debate over the relationship between resource scarcity and prosperity have not highlighted this critical distinction between renewables and