ABSTRACT
Environmental change could ultimately cause the gradual impoverishment of societies in both the North and South, which could aggravate class and ethnic cleavages, undermine liberal regimes, and spawn insurgencies. Poor countries will in general be more vulnerable to environmental change than rich ones; therefore, environmentally induced conflicts are likely to arise first in the developing world. There are important feedback loops from social effects and conflict to the ideational factors and thence back to activity per capita and population. Experts in environmental studies commonly use the labels "cornucopian" for optimists like William Simon and "neo-Malthusian" for pessimists like Paul Diesing and Anne Ehrlich. Future environmental problems, rather than inspiring the wave of ingenuity predicted by cornucopians, may instead reduce the supply of ingenuity available in a society. Unfortunately, however, the syndrome of multiple, interacting, unpredictable, and rapidly changing environmental problems will increase the complexity and pressure of the policymaking setting.
