The unrelenting frequency, intensityand resulting destruction from meteorological events notably heat, drought andrising sea levels are a long-term trend that is fracturing global economic-socio-politicalstability. Such weather that is literally “neither fit for man nor beast” is nolonger a local or regional matter, rather global.

Hell | Dante’s Inferno onEarth

Droughts and severe waterscarcity is increasing in duration and severity globally with an immediate deleteriousimpact on agriculture forcing the internal and external displacement of citizensand, like falling dominos, creating a post-pandemic public health crisis.

The global overview of thiscrisis is captured in the following chart entitled World Sees Record Heat Waves, record temperatures in select countries for the past5 years, compiled by the World Meteorological Organization media reports andStatista research.

From a sub-continentalperspective, even South Asia whose temperatures are historically high, hassuffered from unusually prolonged record-setting temperatures that have aggravateda several decades-old severe public health crisis in high pollution urbanareas.

The following chart entitled How India Is Heating Up provided by the India Meteorological Department andMinistry of Earth Sciences via MOSPI EnviStats Inia report, present a visualcomparative temperature change analysis of decades-long blocks with the mostrecent period (2011-2020) indicating the most disturbing trend.

This summer Europe isexperiencing its most intense wildfire season. The following chart entitled Europe’s Wildfire Season Is Starting Earlier Each Year provided by the EuropeanForest Fire Information System (EFFIS)indicates the increasing area of land burnt by forest fires.

According to EFFIS thepresent-day forest fires are THREE times the average size for the period2008-2021 with Spain and France presenting 40% of the land burnt January-June2022. Burnt forests from these two countries are FOUR times higher than theaverage from the period 2008-2020.

Specific to Europe, shouldthese rising temperature trends continue, the long-term forecast will convert citieswith historically moderate temperature levels into sub-tropical ones accordingto the following chart entitled London Could Feel as Hot as Barcelona by 2050 provided by Jean-Francois Bastin et al.

High Water | No Day at theBeach

Since 1993 sea levels havecontinued to rise unabated no doubt caused by global rising temperatures acceleratingmelting in Antarctica and the Arctic. This trend is expressed in the followingchart entitled Sea Levels Continue to Rise provided by NASA.

 A projected snapshot of whereand how these sea levels will impact the global population by 2100 is indicatedin the following chart entitled Where Most People Are Affected by Rising Sea Levels in a report authored by provided by Scott A. Kulp& Benjamin H. Strauss for the scientific magazine Nature Communications.

Their research reportprojected that by 2100, 200 million people will live BELOW sea level and 160million will be directly impacted by rising ocean levels under the assumptionof an average global temperatures increase of 2 degrees Celsius.

Of the aforementioned 200million people, 70% will live in 8 countries in Asia: China 43 million, Bangladesh32 million, India 27 million in addition to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, thePhilippines and Japan.

Even many European countrieswill face this dilemma, though to a lesser extent than Asia, notably theNetherlands, Germany, the UK, France and Italy.

A Restive Citizenry and CrowdControl

As resources dwindleresulting in less food and fewer habitable regions, those citizens mostimpacted will decamp their home regions and seek those regions where thoseresources are still obtainable such as the already burgeoning and dense urbanareas. Even a modicum of newly arrived refugees in urban areas, already at thebreaking point to provide resources, can easily trigger intense civil unrest.

Even the gated communities won’thave walls high enough to repel the throng of the desperate. Even thosewell-off citizens will experience a lifestyle degradation composed of the keysurvival tenets of food, water, warmth and shelter.

Democracies may becomeilliberal democracies through selective emergency measures (if not alreadycodified), suppression of civil rights, rationing of food, water and energy, hyper& invasive surveillance and even freedom of movement. Authoritarian regimesmerely tighten the noose.

Conclusion

It’s an environmental pincermovement that has slowly progressed over many decades as sea levels push peopleinland toward the raging wildfires. It’s reached the point that it’s directlyaffecting developing countries at an enormous and unsupportable economic cost.

The cascade of meteorologicalproblems could erode and undermine democratic institutions. The draconianmeasures applied during the pandemic exposed what democratic governments arewilling to do and aggressively enforce.

Already the public is pushingback, and pushing back hard, in numerous countries worldwide that go beyond theCivil Rights playbook of non-violent disobedience.

How democratic governmentsinteract with their citizenry will determine whether there is merely civilunrest with the possibility of an acceptable resolution or a societal collapse.

© Copyright 2022 Cerulean CouncilLLC

The Cerulean Council is aNYC-based think-tank that provides prescient, beyond-the-horizon, contrarianperspectives and risk assessments on geopolitical dynamics and global urbansecurity.