Adv 1 – Leadership
Water Impact – African instability
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- Water Impact – food security
Water Impact – African instabilityJacks African stability Montenegro ‘9 (Maywa, editor and writer at Seed magazine, “The Truth About Water Wars,” May 14, 2009 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_truth_about_water_wars/) It’s often been said that the next resource wars will be fought not over oil but over water. In 2007 an 18-month study of Sudan by the UN Environment Program concluded that the conflict in Darfur had its roots in climate change and water shortages. According to the report, disappearing pasture and evaporating water holes—rainfall is down 30 percent over 40 years in some parts of the Sahel—had sparked dispute between herders and farmers and threatened to trigger a succession of new wars across Africa. Months later, the British nonprofit International Alert released a study identifying 46 countries—home to 2.7 billion people—where water and climate stresses could ignite violent conflict by 2025, prompting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to say, “The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.” Those remarks came just as David Zhang of Hong Kong University published a study linking water shortages to violence throughout history. Analyzing half a millennium’s worth of human conflict—more than 8,000 wars—Zhang concluded that climate change and resulting water shortages had been a far greater trigger than previously imagined. “We are on alert, because this gives us the indication that resource shortage is the main cause of war,” Zhang told the London Times. Now, in UNESCO’s third major World Water Development Report, released in March at the World Water Forum in Istanbul, the threat is again plainly stated: “As climate change and adverse water impacts increase in politically charged areas, conflicts will likely intensify, requiring new and rapid adaptive security strategies.” Goes global Glick ‘7 (Caroline Glick 7, deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, Senior Fellow for Middle East Affairs of the Center for Security Policy, “Condi's African holiday”, December 11, http://www.rightsidenews.com/20071211309/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/our-world-condis-african-holiday.html) The Horn of Africa is a dangerous and strategically vital place. Small wars, which rage continuously, can easily escalate into big wars. Local conflicts have regional and global aspects. All of the conflicts in this tinderbox, which controls shipping lanes from the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea, can potentially give rise to regional, and indeed global conflagrations between competing regional actors and global powers. Water Impact – food securityWater scarcity triggers conflict and destabilizes food supply Higgins ’12 (Alexander, citing an intelligence report from The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Higgins is a Senior NJ ASP.Net Developer “Report: Water Shortages To Spark Global Unrest, US Privatizing Supplies,” March 22nd, http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/03/22/privatize-water-report-shortages-spark-global-unrest-102171/ An intelligence report based on classified information warns water shortages will soon lead to global unrest and threaten the National Security of the United States. The intelligence reports that wars over water won’t happen over night, but within another 10 years the lack of water is expected to become crucial to the point where it can contribute to conditions that cause the collapse of governments or spark wars in areas of political instability. The most immediate concern is depleted groundwater used for farming could destabilize supplies of food and trigger hyperinflation in food prices. It names the Amu Darya river in Central Asia and Afghanistan, which flows from Tibet through India to Bangladesh, as flash points of war because these governments will be “inadequate” to handle “political grievances” over the water coming from shared water supplies. The report also rates the Indus in south Asia and the Jordan in the Middle East as being at “moderate” risk of political instability and rated the “Mekong River watershed in Southeast Asia; the Tigris and Euphrates in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran; and the Nile Basin in northern Africa as “limited.” Food insecurity escalates Trudell ‘5 (Robert H., Fall, Trudell, J.D. Candidate 2006, Food Security Emergencies And The Power Of Eminent Domain: A Domestic Legal Tool To Treat A Global Problem, 33 Syracuse J. Int'l L. & Com. 277, Lexis) 2. But, Is It Really an Emergency? In his study on environmental change and security, J.R. McNeill dismisses the scenario where environmental degradation destabilizes an area so much that "security problems and ... resource scarcity may lead to war." 101 McNeill finds such a proposition to be a weak one, largely because history has shown society is always able to stay ahead of widespread calamity due, in part, to the slow pace of any major environmental change. 102 This may be so. However, as the events in Rwanda illustrated, the environment can breakdown quite rapidly - almost before one's eyes - when food insecurity drives people to overextend their cropland and to use outmoded agricultural practices. 103 Furthermore, as Andre and Platteau documented in their study of Rwandan society, overpopulation and land scarcity can contribute to a breakdown of society itself. 104 Mr. McNeill's assertion closely resembles those of many critics of Malthus. 105 The general argument is: whatever issue we face (e.g., environmental change or overpopulation), it will be introduced at such a pace that we can face the problem long before any calamity sets in. 106 This wait-and-see view relies on many factors, not least of which are a functioning society and innovations in agricultural productivity. But, today, with up to 300,000 child soldiers fighting in conflicts or wars, and perpetrating terrorist acts, the very fabric of society is under increasing world-wide pressure. 107 Genocide, anarchy, dictatorships, and war are endemic throughout Africa; it is a troubled continent whose problems threaten global security and challenge all of humanity. 108 As [*292] Juan Somavia, secretary general of the World Social Summit, said: "We've replaced the threat of the nuclear bomb with the threat of a social bomb." 109 Food insecurity is part of the fuse burning to set that bomb off. It is an emergency and we must put that fuse out before it is too late. 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