The original version of this article, by Stewart M. Patrick, appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations’ The Internationalist blog.

Not long ago, concerns about environmental degradation were marginal in U.S. national security deliberations. What a difference climate change has made. Foreign policy officials and experts are starting to recognize profound linkages between planetary health, economic prosperity, and international security. These connections were on full view last Wednesday, when the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) teamed up with Conservation International (CI) to convene a symposium, “Global Resources, the U.S. Economy, and National Security.”

The live-streamed event assembled intelligence officials, development economists, defense experts, conservation biologists, and corporate executives to discuss the rapid degradation of the earth’s natural endowments and its dire implications for long-term prosperity and stability. The provocative conversation ranged far beyond global warming to assess the implications of deforestation and desertification, collapsing fisheries, habitat destruction, and water scarcity.  That these topics were broached at CFR – an august institution traditionally concerned with issues like Middle East peace, nuclear proliferation, or China’s rise – shows how central the subject of sustainability has become for foreign policy professionals.

The reasons are clear. For the first time in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history, the most powerful force shaping the planet is human activity. Some geologists have coined a new label for this era: The “Anthropocene.”  This epoch may turn out to be short-lived, however, given the disastrous pace at which our species is degrading the earth’s natural capital endowments – from rainforests to oceans to aquifers. Globally, governments have failed to account for – and private markets to put a price on—the many “ecosystem services” that nature provides, ranging from arable land to clean air to fresh drinking water.  Unless humanity reverses course, warns the Stockholm Resilience Center, the world could be in for “irreversible and abrupt environmental change.”

Powerful demographic and economic forces are driving these trends.  The world will need to make room for two billion more people in coming decades, before the global population stabilizes at nine billion. Consumer demand will accelerate even faster, as humanity becomes richer. Between now and 2030, the global middle class is slated to double­­.  These newly affluent populations will place extraordinary strain on the earth’s limited supplies of arable land, fresh water, fisheries, and forests, with knock-on consequences for political instability and international security.

Continue reading on The Internationalist.

Video Credit: The Council on Foreign Relations.