ABSTRACT
As a natural scientist with a long-standing interest in interdisciplinary research I have welcomed the recent discovery of global environmental change by political scientists. Indeed, I have marveled at the speed with which the concerns about potential violent conflicts engendered by severe environmental degradation rose to become a leading contender to replace the threat of nuclear war as the ultimate global nightmare. Or, to look at it from a different angle, I have admired the adroitness with which many practitioners of the discipline, which has lost its main feeding (and funding) ground with the dissolution of the Soviet empire, repositioned themselves to forecast a new Apocalypse-and hence to attract reoriented granting largesse driven by a new global angst.
