What Next? A Search for Security in War and Peace

Abstract

It has become abundantly clear that the global biosphere—its plants, animals, and associated ecosystems (biomes)—are being ever more seriously threatened by ever greater human arrogations on the one hand, and by ever greater human disruptions on the other. As our human numbers keep increasing, our combined human needs perforce increase apace; and, in turn, those needs are compounded by our even more rapidly growing discretionary uses (#116, #203). One poignant example of our global over-population is the vast number of environmental refugees (#226, #257). The ongoing environmental devastation is, of course, a tragedy in its own right, but that environmental devastation impinges as well on what I have defined as ‘comprehensive human security’ with its unavoidable environmental security component (more on that below).