Video: Cleo Paskal on C-Span from the National Press Club, Washington, DC

Cleo Paskal talks to C-Span's Book show about Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map. Topics include the investment by China in ice-breakers. She was interviewed at the 33rd Annual National Press Club Book Fair and Authors' Night, a fundraiser for the Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library and The SEED Foundation held Tuesday, November 9, 2010. To see the interview, click here (it won't embed :) )

Video of Cleo Paskal at the Commonwealth Club of California talking Arctic security

The Arctic security portion of the discussion Cleo had at the Commonwealth Club of California with Amy Standen from KQED FM. 

Review of Global Warring on the Natural Security blog of the Center for a New American Security

Daniel Saraceno, at the Center for a New American Security's blog, has reviewed Global Warring, saying, in part:

What makes this book unique and such a solid reading of natural security-related issues is the security and political scope Paskal uses to explore the consequences of a changing climate. For example, a melting Arctic could open the Northwest Passage, which could also open up new Asian markets to the European Union, in addition to exposing a sparsely populated Great White North to real security concerns for North America. Such concerns have already been voiced by Canada, and tensions have increased somewhat with America’s claim that the passage is an international waterway, creating a small political schism between us and our North American neighbor.



To read more, click here. 

Nice blog coverage of Global Warring

Several important blogs have been covering Global Warring recently. Some excerpts:

• Keith Kloor's Collide-a-Scape wrote: after reading Global Warring, Cleo Paskal’s excellent new book on geopolitics in the era of climate change, I’m convinced that someone should amend the Wikipedia entry so that in addition to Eurasia, Africa and the Arctic are included as geopolitical battlegrounds for control over the world’s energy resources.

• Resilience Science used the Nature review of Global Warring to expand the discussion on the Arctic. You can read the post here.

• Jason at Carrots and Sticks reviewed Cleo's talk at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. An excerpt: In order to truly understand the geopolitical and geoeconomic paradigm of the world, we have to understand the geophysical. That was the main point Cleo Paskal made at yesterday morning’s New America Foundation event. [...]Her speech touched upon a few topics, the main ones being how environmental change presents challenges for physical infrastructure, service infrastructure, and legal structure. Before we take a quick look at these, let me clarify on what Cleo Paskal means when she says environmental change. Environmental change is a broader term which includes changes that would exist in the absence of climate change. So Cleo Paskal cites hurricane Katrina as an obvious example. The levees broke, there was a lack of town planning and there was large scale subsidence. The damage to physical infrastructure was immense. The main point being that all of those things could still happen in the absence of climate change.

Cleo quotes galore... (New York Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Bloomberg, BBC)

Over the last few months, Cleo has been busy. She has been quoted in a range of articles. 


In an article on Bangladesh, the New York Times, wrote: 


Paskal, of the Royal Institute, said Bangladesh, by pouring money and research into new ways to deal with climate change, is actually protecting the world from conflict.
"We need a stable India, and [climate migration] has the potential to destabilize India," she said. "If we try to put pressure on India to take in refugees, we're undermining our credibility in India's eyes."
But, Paskal said, Bangladesh "is a nation of serious, hard-working people. It is their adaptive capacity that is cushioning us from some of the worst impacts."

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In an article about the Arctic, Bloomberg quotes Cleo:


``The situation is changing very quickly because of climate change,'' Paskal said. ``There's unquestionably going to be dramatically increased traffic through the Arctic.''

[...]

``It's advantageous for shipping and in a military-conflict situation,'' Paskal said. ``It needs to be managed very carefully for it not to be another destabilizing factor in geopolitical affairs.''

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Another article about the Arctic, this time in The Telegraph, also quotes Cleo. You can read that one here.


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If you click here, you can read The Guardian's report on Cleo's work on maritime boundaries and the potential for countries to legally disappear.


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And in the lead-up to Copenhagen, the BBC's The World Tonight presented a panel to discuss the significance of metting. Host Robin Lustig was joined by Professor Steve Rayner of Oxford University, Mike Hulme Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia, Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Climate and Energy, the Labour MP Elliot Morley and, yes, Cleo.


You can hear it by clicking here.