Marc Levy’s response to Halvard Buhaug’s paper on climate-security linkages, a critique of the World Bank’s latest report on land grabs, and resource conflicts top the list this month:

1. On the Beat: Climate-Security Linkages Lost in Translation

2. New World Bank Report on Land Grabs Is a Dud

3. India’s Maoists: South Asia’s “Other” Insurgency

4. U.S. v. China: The Global Battle for Hearts, Minds, and Resources

5. DRC’s Conflict Minerals: Can U.S. Law Impact the Violence?

6. Historic Floods Plague Pakistan

7. Iraq at the Crossroads: Water, Power, Trash, and Security: Interview with Iraq’s First Minister of the Environment Mishkat Al Moumin

8. UK Royal Society: Call for Submissions “People and the Planet” Study To Examine Population, Environment, Development Links

9. Demographics, Depleted Resources, and Al Qaeda Inflame Tensions in Yemen

10. Guest Contributor Serge Dedina: Environmental Security Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Contrary to the iconic image of lapping waves submerging low-lying countries, few Pacific islanders are emigrating from their homes due to climate change, according to Australian geographer Jon Barnett of the University of Melbourne.

The Woodrow Wilson Center awards approximately 20-25 residential fellowships annually to individuals with outstanding project proposals in a broad range of the social sciences and humanities on national and/or international issues. Topics and scholarship should relate to key public policy challenges or provide the historical and/or cultural framework to illuminate policy issues of contemporary importance.

Fellowship applications must be postmarked or submitted online by October 1. Applicants are notified of the results of the selection process in March of the following year.

For more information, please see the full application announcement here.

Excerpted from the original version of this article on Slate, by James Fleming.

Is there a technological fix for global warming? Where would we put a “planetary thermostat,” and who would control the settings? The long and tragicomic history of fixing the sky — of rainmakers, rain fakers, weather warriors, and climate engineers — indicates that such ideas are far-fetched. Dosing the stratosphere with sulfuric acid to turn the blue sky milky-white does not sound like a good idea. Neither does dumping an iron slurry into the oceans to fill them with algae and turn them soupy-green. A global forest of artificial trees? Storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide under our feet forever? A flotilla of ships pumping seawater into the clouds? Unlikely, unlikely, unlikely.

Global climate engineering is untested and untestable, and dangerous beyond belief. The famous mathematician and computer pioneer John von Neumann warned against it in 1955. Responding to U.S. fantasies about weaponizing the weather and Soviet proposals to modify the Arctic and rehydrate Siberia, he expressed concern over “rather fantastic effects” on a scale difficult to imagine and impossible to predict. Tinkering with the Earth’s heat budget or the atmosphere’s general circulation, he claimed, “will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war may already have done.” In his opinion, attempts at weather and climate control could disrupt natural and social relations and produce forms of warfare as yet unimagined. It could alter the entire globe and shatter the existing political order.

Continue reading on Slate.

James Fleming is an environmental historian and Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College. ECSP and the Wilson Center will be hosting the launch of his new book, Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, on October 6, 2010.

Photo Credit: Adapted from “Lever du jour,” courtesy of flickr user Solea20.

Speaking yesterday at the Wilson Center, Circle of Blue Senior Editor and New York Times reporter Keith Schneider called his organization’s latest project, reporting on the intersection of finite water resources and growing demand for energy around the world, one of the most important stories of his career. First in the series is Choke Point: U.S.:

“Why should we be concerned with scarcity issues?” asks New York University’s Alex Evans. Beyond general population growth, there is also an expanding global middle class that is shifting to more Western diets and consuming more energy, he explains. The net result is that demand for food, water, oil, and land is outpacing supply. These scarcity issues should be grouped together, argues Evans, because you can’t address one without affecting the others.

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.

From 20-22 September 2010, world leaders will meet in New York City to discuss the United Nations’ “We Can End Poverty 2015” Millennium Development Goals, which include food security, maternal and child health, and environmental sustainability as key objectives, but controversially, make no mention of population. Officially, there is only one small “side session,” organized by Vicky Markham of the Center for Environment and Population, devoted to talking about the MDGs in the integrated context of population, health, and environment (PHE).

“If we could do something about unintended pregnancies – which are about 80 million a year – we could dramatically reduce population growth,” and reduce pressure on the environment, says Joseph Speidel in this short analysis from the Environmental Change and Security Program. Speidel discusses the connections between population, health, and environment issues, and offers solutions for the way forward.

The “Pop Audio” series offers brief clips from ECSP’s conversations with experts around the world, sharing analysis and promoting dialogue on population-related issues. Also available on iTunes.