environmental scarcity essays

environmental scarcity essays Conflict From Environmental Scarcity or Lust For Wealth? In "Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict," Thomas F. Homer-Dixon writes about the possible conflicts that are caused by environmental scarcities, using three different hypotheses's to do so. I found the first hypothesis to be most compelling because I feel it is the most prevalent in the world today. The first hypothesis in "Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict" states that environmental scarcity causes simple-scarcity conflicts between states . I selected "Lust for diamonds kills thousands in African wars," which I found on the web page www.cnn.com, to test this hypothesis. Homer-Dixon's hypothesis that environmental scarcity causes simple-scarcity conflicts between states is a valuable one and I feel that some conflicts such as the one involving diamond wars in Africa give this hypothesis merit although the wars in Africa cannot be solely based on it. Although Homer-Dixon concludes that the first hypothesis lacks empirical support, I feel that it is more interesting and easier to draw conclusions from it then the other two because of its simplicity. Unlike the other two hypothesis which are inter-woven with several elaborate ideas that all must coincide in order to justify it, the first hypothesis relies on the simple fact that a lack of resources and states quest for these resources drive the possibility of conflict and violence. I also like the examples used to support it such as Japan's strategy during World War II to obtain resources from China and the Persian Gulf War, which the United States was involved in. I lived through the Gulf War and believe that the war was almost solely based on the importance of obtaining oil from the Middle East. Contrary to what the United States wanted people to perceive, they where not simply helping out a weaker country like Kuwait in time of need but rather looking out for their own w ell being which mea ...