Ecological security

Abstract

Human life and society are founded on the ecosphere, so increasing pressure on the latter generates rising instability in the former. This leads to unprecedented challenges for peace and security, feeding into the security sphere. It influences geopolitics, while the responses to ecological crisis are themselves affected by geopolitics. This chapter outlines six aspects of ecological disruption: global warming and climate change, antimicrobial resistance, pollution, loss of nature's contributions to people, local tipping points, and disruptive organisms. It offers a summary treatment of their impact based on four pathways to insecurity and risk of violent conflict: health, livelihoods, food, and behaviour. The effects of ecological disruption go deep and raise the simultaneously ecological, social and geopolitical question of what world is being built.