Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change Hardcover – June 6, 2008

"Climatic Cataclysm builds on the best available scientific evidence to create three scenarios about the way the peoples of the world —ourselves included —may come to live as the result of climate change at various levels of severity. There is a key insight here, and it is that climate change will not only stress every ecological system but every political system on the planet, and that beyond a certain level, it can push them into chaos. This book is an important effort to translate the broad outlines of climate change into more specific visualizations of the social, political, and moral consequences for regions, states, and peoples. It has a quality of realism that reflects the breadth of experience of its contributors and also the skill of its editors in creating an integrated narrative. Very little time remains for organizing around a coherent idea of the impact of climate change and of the scale of the efforts that will be needed to cope with it. Climatic Cataclysm helps show the way." —Al Gore, Nobel Peace Laureate and former Vice President

"The authors provide an imaginative and worthwhile examination of what could turn out to be the greatest threat to our nation's security." — Tom and Jerry Blog

"This important volume, edited by a leading figure in the foreign policy establishment, makes an eloquent argument for why today's decision-makers have no choice but to act on the coming dangers of global climate change." —G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs

"This disturbing, prophetic volume should be widely read." — CHOICE

"Climatic Cataclysm builds on the best available scientific evidence to create three scenarios about the way the peoples of the world ¿ourselves included ¿may come to live as the result of climate change at various levels of severity. There is a key insight here, and it is that climate change will not only stress every ecological system but every political system on the planet, and that beyond a certain level, it can push them into chaos. This book is an important effort to translate the broad outlines of climate change into more specific visualizations of the social, political, and moral consequences for regions, states, and peoples. It has a quality of realism that reflects the breadth of experience of its contributors and also the skill of its editors in creating an integrated narrative. Very little time remains for organizing around a coherent idea of the impact of climate change and of the scale of the efforts that will be needed to cope with it. Climatic Cataclysm helps show the way." ¿Al Gore, Nobel Peace Laureate and former Vice President