Georgina Brown discusses how we in the west are merely keeping our conflict skills in practice.
Conflict is often discussed in terms of office politics, family break-ups, historical divisions between communities; never over real fundamental needs. It is a luxury of living in the West that we can play at conflict, driven by status and of course boredom. But we are merely keeping our skills in practice.
Real conflict is about survival. The World’s population is now officially over the six billion mark. According to The United Nations Population Fund, by 2025 the population will be between 7.28 and 8.38 billion, rising to 9.3 billion in 2050.
The squeeze on resources is already tightening. Less water, energy, food and land. Conflict will grow as people strive to take their share of the World’s materials - and by this we are not talking wistfully about consumerism, but really basic stuff like getting a drink.
A feature by the BBC in August 2007 forewarned us that wheat stockpiles are lower than they have been for three decades. The United Nations World Food Program is now urgently reporting that Afghanistan needs 89,000 tonnes of wheat due to global prices soaring between 60 - 80%.
Then there is the impact on the planet. With the World’s population stacking up, simply wishing our energy needs away will not do. Even if we reduce our standards of living to match pre-industrial history, we would still have higher carbon emissions than ever before, at some stage in the future.
Before you reach for the family planning helpline, remember there are no easy solutions. It would take somebody insane to advocate allowing violent murder and banning sex.
Technology is the key. Methods of recycling water, carbon, releasing energy cleanly and building in new environments all need investigation. But again this will create conflict as single minded people force ill thought-out experiments on our environment. Genetically modified engineering is the perfect example.
Hopefully six billion people will generate some ideas. So put aside your petty problems of today, get your thinking cap on and get inventing. This is the only way to prevent future conflict.
