ABSTRACT
Less well recognized and accepted is the role climate change has played as one of the causal factors of social and political upheaval as well as the role war and militarism play in contributing to climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that temperatures above 2ºC could result in 'severe, widespread, possibly abrupt and irreversible impacts that civilizations would be unable to cope with'. The modern era's first climate change refugees were some 500,000 Bangladeshis, left homeless by the flooding of their island in 2005. While the majority of the world's most polluting nations recognize the need to reduce greenhouse gases, none of the world's major powers has been willing to renounce militarism or to curb the trade in weapons. The United States and its allies have spent trillions financing anti-terrorist military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and now they are moving into Africa.
