Australian Wildfires Caused By Severe Drought, Possibly Global Warming The recent wildfires in southern Australia have presented some of the most horrific images in memory, made all the more so by the news that some of those fires were deliberately set by an arsonist.  200 or more victims had little chance to escape the fiery inferno because of the severe drought that has ravaged Australia since 2002.  More than a few scientists attribute this drought, in part, to global warming.  We are just beginning to see the terrible impact of climate change on human beings. Global Warming Will Cause Sea Levels to Rise Over the next century global warming will continue and human beings will see more hurricanes, floods storms of all kinds, but most critically, the melting of polar ice and the rising of sea levels. As the seas rise, coastal areas that are now inhabited will be flooded and whole populations will have to move-islands like the Maldives, Bangladesh, even large cities like New York City and Los Angeles may be submerged.  Large numbers of people will be on the move, in search of new homes, perhaps new countries.  With huge numbers of people migrating you have the ingredients for conflict, a perfect storm of conflict. Displacement of People Equals Perfect Opportunities for Conflict I have even heard it suggested that as the world warms, people will migrate to the colder areas of the world, like Canada and Siberia. Think about that. How happy would Russia and Canada be to welcome huge numbers of people migrating to their countries?

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 The Era of Exclusive National Self-Interest is Over I was startled to hear Henry Kissinger, on a recent Charlie Rose program, suggest that the world’s countries can no longer afford to conduct foreign policy based solely on their own self-interest.  Globalization has progressed so far and the world has so dwindled in size, that every nation’s interest is now entangled with that of every other country.   From issues of global finance to rogue nuclear bombs to global warming and pandemic flu, we are now in a new era.  If the new world order has not yet arrived, it is certainly on its way. Transformational Diplomacy Is at Hand While former Secretary Kissinger did not quite say, “We must now think as one,” he came very close to it.  Even key Bush administration figures have changed their thinking radically in the past few years, and these changes came because raw experience on the ground fighting terror in Iraq and Afghanistan forced them to shift their approach.  Condoleeza Rice in the State Department has been calling for transformational diplomacy and the emphasis in that department is now on planning and implementing good governance.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also given speeches in the past year in which he declared that the sharp divisions between war, peace, diplomacy and development are no longer useful.  The goal is now to stabilize governments in troubled areas around the globe. Failed States Endanger Everyone Failed states present one of the most difficult challenges to peace in the twenty first century. From Somalia, where pirates attack ships because it is so lucrative, to raging war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where rape is a prime weapon, to the genocide in Darfur/Sudan, to the corrupt government in Afghanistan, installed by the U.S. after the fall of the Taliban, all of these states present ominous threats to the safety and security of  surrounding states, as well as to the western world, and they threaten the lives and health of millions of innocent women and children caught in the crossfire.  The Desperate are Frightened, Hungry, Sick and Violent                                                                                                           The problems are deep and vast.  Millions of people desperate for the basics of life:  food, clean water, a roof over their heads, electricity, roads, sanitation, reliable government services that are not riddled with corruption, a money supply free from inflation.  In short, they long for a chance to make it in the world, a chance to survive and thrive without fear of being slaughtered, raped, tortured or dying of disease or starvation at a very young age.

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This is a continuation of the conversation we started last week addressing the costs and impact of our long habit of engaging in the use of armed violence to solve conflict. Last week we looked at the costs to the combatants themselves and the sponsoring nation/group of engaging in violence. This week we will focus on the other costs of armed violence and the deeper, hidden costs of this form of problem solving.                                                                                                                                                                     Costs to Victims and Collateral Damage Civilians, men, women, children, the aged, none of them matter during the relentless march of armed violence. All their needs are swept aside. Everyone is a target.

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There is a universal longing for peace and yet we never seem to achieve it despite our longings and good intentions. We are pervaded with cynicism and a deep-seated belief that war will always be with us because, well, “that’s just how humans are.” The intention of this blog is to start a new and very different conversation: that peace is possible if we say we want it, and if we are committed to creating it so it thrives on the planet. We can design and live into the kind of world we want to inhabit. This blog is about inquiring deeply into all our conversations from the past, exploring what keeps us in a violence-filled world, the costs of living in such a world and what it would take for us to deliberately create a world which works for every one, not just for a select few. A second intention of this blog is to create a community of readers who see the possibility in the ideas presented here and who will take hold of this new idea about creating peace intentionally on the planet. Toward that end, I am strongly encouraging readers to comment on posts and to interact with me, guest bloggers and with each other.

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Americans today are divided, polarized by political and cultural schisms that are wide, painful and deep. The nature of the issues that divide us are social, cultural, political and religious. In some ways it feels as if we are living in two different countries, depending on where you live and how you describe these schisms and how you vote. The simplest description of this division is to separate the country into the so-called red states and blue states, that is that people in those states vote overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic depending on how they feel about certain cultural or social issues. We can pretty much predict that most people who are pro-choice vote Democratic and most people who are against same sex marriage vote Republican. No surprise there.

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