Environment Is Worth Fighting For But Not the Way You Think

So can agricultural issues, which are "environmental" because they are tied to the weather (rain, drought) or chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers, acid rain) or land management (rain and wind erosion) or biodiversity (insect pests caused by species imbalance). With the world's population growing steadily, food or the ability to produce it will become more and more of a resource to fight over.

Even a single nation's official environmental policies can have an impact on a neighbor's environment. For example, when Thailand banned forestry in certain regions because of the damage it caused, loggers simply moved to adjacent Myanmar where there were no logging restrictions. While the United States has banned certain pesticides, companies still export them to other countries where, for one reason or another, governments have not banned them. Lack of solid waste disposal sites in the Untied States led to attempts to export trash to foreign countries--sending one country's problems somewhere else.

Going after resources or exporting environmental waste or damage are not the only activities with the potential for conflict. Even peaceful humanitarian activity has the potential to escalate. When U.N. peacekeeping troops are sent to guard those delivering humanitarian aid to starving people, troops sometimes become engaged in violence. Other troops become engaged when they are sent to quell violence in countries that are unstable because of their economies. Economics is partly responsible for poverty and poverty is considered to be an environmental issue. If the dreaded African Ebola virus is viewed as a threat, do you think nations wouldn't resort to force to contain an outbreak if they felt it necessary? You can bet they would.

It isn't farfetched to image the eruption of conflict as the amount, distribution, management and acquisition of resources moves from the national to international sphere.

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