HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

“If one were to imagine the ‘go on as usual’ strategy at the level of individuals, one would immediately think of a sociopath who has no problem consuming seventy times more than anyone else while largely relying on their raw materials — or someone who uses fifteen times more energy, water and food than the less well-off and discharges nine times more pollutants into the atmosphere. Such a personality would also be totally unconcerned about the lives of his children and grandchildren, accepting that, because of him and his kind, 852 million people worldwide go hungry and more than 20 million are refugees.” from Climate Wars: Why people will be killed in the twenty-first century, Harald Welzer (p165) ( )

The honest answer to the question in the title of this book is, "for the same reasons as they were in the 20th century." I rather get the feeling that this is the view of Harald Welzer but, when he presented his book for publishing, some whiz-kid of the publishing world decided that it needed spicing up. The climate change aspects of this book feel as if they have been tacked on afterwards: of course, it goes without saying, that, if tensions are high in a certain area and then, climate change decimates the living standards of one, or even sides, the result will not be good. This does not mean that changes in temperature, or rainfall, will cause a new World War; indeed, as Mr Welzer is quick to point out, the Western World is likely to come out of climate change rather well. It is the Third World which will suffer, once more.

One may think that, if the main tenet of the book is not proved, then the reading thereof would be a waste of time. In this instance, I would suggest this to be incorrect. I found much to educate myself upon the reasoning of warring factions, and the human mind set in general. I was particularly fascinated by the author's chapter upon the topic of 'shifting baselines'. I will not try to explain same here, but as I read this section, I was struck by that feeling one gets when reading something which one, sort of knew already, but had not formulated into a solid idea

I am not a great reader upon the subject of war and so, perhaps the wiser amongst you will already be more aware of the data concerning American attitudes to civilians in Vietnam: Mr Welzer explains their callous attitude to fellow human beings, and also those of the German people during the Nazi era, in a way which does not excuse, but equally does not simply vilify those whose actions are not acceptable to us. I found that his reasoning provided the best, most understandable, explanation that I have come across. If we do not comprehend, but merely scorn those who do not think in ways that we find acceptable, we leave the door open for such regimes to be re-born. The book would have been worth the read just for this, but I found much more to commend it to me and I now commend it to you. ( )