It’s Getting Hot In Here

Two prominent climate crusaders were nominated last week for candidates for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize: Sheila Watt-Cloutier of Canada and Al Gore of the United States.

“The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.”

But wait a minute - Is climate change related to human rights? Mediating international conflicts? And what about arms control?? Does this even make sense to link these issues?

I personally can’t think of anything more rational.

In 1988 at the first ever major conference for international scientists on climate change, a resolution was released, of which the first line was:

“Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment, whose ultimate consequences are second only to global nuclear war.”

A Human Rights Issue

Climate change is largely a product of human emissions, most of which are produced by only 30% of the population, while the other 70% of people have little to do with creating the problem yet are the first to feel the effects of climate change. There are a number of related issues to these injustices; they are integrated issues of environmental justice dealing with inequalities based on the history and current prejudism of class, ethnicity and race. Read more on this issue here.

An International Conflict

Who reduces greenhouse gas emissions and who should reduce them first is the first thing that comes to mind. This is rolled into the ever-evolving Kyoto Protocol - the international treaty with 167 member countries, which together make up 55% of the global emissions in 1990, with a commitment to collectively reduce emissions by 5% by 2012 as a first step.

Beyond treaties, however, is the deeper issue of what will happen when climate change not only hits us all, but hits us hard. This is already happening in some places, but not everyone has felt the effects themselves - yet. Scientists warn that climate change will affect the international economy in terms of oil imports and exports (either as we scrape the bottom of the barrel dry, or decided to phase-out fossil fuels). And more serious yet, is that climate change has the ability to drastically change the availability of the planet’s fresh water resources. A) Polar ice is melting (freshwater) into the ocean. B) Precipitation patterns are changing - meaning more flooding in some areas and more droughts in others. C) Sea level rise would contaminate fresh groundwater with the incoming salt water.

Beyond water, the lives of humans are at risk - not only from water shortages, but also from increasing intensities of storms and potential loss of crops around the world. Increased temperatures also means increased productivity of diseases such as Malaria - just this winter Malaria returned to Italy because it is now warm enough for mosquitos to survive.

In a sentence, climate change could be the biggest international conflict humankind has ever experienced.

Arms Controlled by the Climate

With international conflict often comes the use of arms. Water shortages and the increasing rarity of oil are two issues that alone could influence the use of arms in the coming decades. They don’t come hand-in-hand by any means, but it is not outside of the realm of possibilities for them to be closely linked as climate change impacts intensify.

Given, this is slightly depressing. But these issues do not have to get to this point. The potential exists, but that doesn’t mean it is the plot of the evolving story of climate change. There are people who are changing their ways. There are people who are leading enterprises and corporations and governments that are reshaping the story. Most importantly, these individuals are influencing people around them, and are making real changes that are remediating emerging international conflict, human rights violations and use of arms. And so we see the connection between Gore, Watt-Cloutier, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Shiela Watt-Cloutier has long been a human-rights advocate for the northern Inuit on the issue of climate change. We often hear that the global temperature rise could be anywhere between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius - but for Northern areas around the world in particular, many of which are home to indigenous cultures, will see a shift of 10 to 12 degrees, if not higher. The temperatures have already started rising, and over 20% of the Arctic has already melted. This is threatening animal survival (major food source) as well as vital transportation (due to ice uncertainty).

Watt-Cloutier refuses to stand by while that happens. The 51-year-old is the elected chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, a federation of Native nations representing about 150,000 people in Canada, Greenland, Russia, and the U.S. To save their homes, their prey, and themselves, the ICC is taking on the world’s largest, most recalcitrant greenhouse-gas emitter, the country the Inuit say is driving them extinct: the United States of America. The group is, as Watt-Cloutier puts it, “defending our right to be cold.” - ”Quote from ”Grist”article”

Al Gore is best known for his stimulating film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, focusing on the sciences and causes of climate change. This movie has grown into a full-blown campaign involving citizens from across Canada and the US being trained to replicate his presentation in communities and schools across the nations. This movie has become incredibly wide-spread, influencing minds around the world. Gore has spent years developing and delivering educational presentations on climate change across the globe. He was also long-time Vice-President of the United States and has also served in the House of Representatives and Senate for the Democrat party.

In a similar fashion, Wangari Maathai of Kenya was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for spearheading the Green Belt movement across Africa. She thought, if deforestation is contributing so much to global climate change, then why don’t we plant more trees? And so she did. I had the pleasure of meeting the warm and peaceful Ms. Maathai in Nairobi at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and had her sign her own book that the youth caucus then presented to our past and Kyoto-critical Environment Minister of Canada (Rona Ambrose), in which she wrote, “Sharing the concern and the responsibility”, in reference to the pressing issue of climate change.

Sharing concerns and responsibility is exactly what we all need to be doing. It’s what Sheila Watt-Cloutier and Al Gore are doing. It’s what youth around the world are doing. And it’s what we tend to do to resolve conflict. Including that of climate change.

Noble? Yes.

Nobel? I hope so.