War and Peace at Issue in Climate Change

Newswise — While the deluge of climate change predictions coming out of the Feb. 17-21 AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C., hit the media like torrential meltwater run-off, one prediction deals with the potential of wars over water, borders and landform changes.

Science meets politics already at the India-Pakistan border and may be a portent of things to come. "India, China and Pakistan are big governments with a history of antagonism, and while their conflicts now are not primarily about water, because of their history of conflict, water could be another antagonist," University of Vermont Assistant Professor Saleem Ali told the BBC World News Network after delivering his paper at the American Association for the 100 Advancement of Science meeting this past weekend.

In "Himalayan High Ice: Climate, Water, Hazard, War and Peace" Ali and colleagues describe the meltwaters in the Himalayas as "the very lifeblood of the region and a threat to 400-500 million South Asian people who depend on the water supply" as global warming shrinks glaciers, shakes unstable dams and turns fresh- into salt-water. Ali's work aims to test how environmental issues and scientific concerns, in this case, galvanize conflict resolution.