Global Environmental Change and Human Security

Abstract

Throughout most of human history the constraints imposed by local environmental conditions and their natural variability were powerful determinants of the security of individuals and societies: animals, droughts, floods, frosts, pathogens, storms, and other environmental perturbations were significant causes of mortality, morbidity and social disruption. In today’s most modern societies, technology, trade, industrialization, the use of fossil fuels, occupational specialization, and higher levels of social organization have all weakened many of the constraints that the local environment places on people’s needs, rights, and values (human security). Since the Industrial Revolution and the consolidation of the modern trading nation state, there have been thousand-fold increases in the production of goods and the use of energy, and hundred-fold increases in international trade in goods and services. Over the same period, the global population has increased from I billion to over 6 billion people, and most people now live longer, consume more, and are better educated than in previous generations.