In “Who Cares About the Weather?: Climate Change and U.S. National Security” (subscription required), Joshua Busby argues that although advocates have overstated some of climate change’s impacts, it nevertheless poses direct threats to conventional U.S. national security interests, and therefore deserves serious consideration by both academics and policymakers.

An article in the Economist examines the melting Kolahoi glacier, which could soon threaten water supply and livelihoods in the Kashmir valley.

“Marauding elephants in northern Uganda have added to the challenges faced by civilians trying to rebuild their lives in the wake of 20 years of civil war, destroying their crops and prompting some to return to displaced people’s (IDP) camps they had only recently left,” says an article from IRIN News.

In an EarthSky podcast interview, Lori Hunter of the University of Colorado, Boulder, discusses her work researching how HIV/AIDS affects families’ use of natural resources.

Payson Schwin of the World Resources Institute recently interviewed Crispino Lobo of the Watershed Organization Trust about his work helping rural Indian villages escape poverty by managing their natural resources sustainably.

A research commentary from Population Action International explores family planning trends in Pakistan, as well as the relationships between demography and security in this critically important country.

Despite—or perhaps because of—its extremely high population density, Rwanda has launched a series of initiatives to protect its environment and reduce poverty, reports the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The Population Reference Bureau has released two new policy briefs examining population, health, and environment issues in Calabarzon Region and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.

Stalled Youth Transitions in the Middle East: A Framework for Policy Reform proposes changes to education, employment, and housing that would offer Middle Eastern youth additional opportunities. “Young people in the Middle East (15-29 years old) constitute about one-third of the region’s population, and growth rates for this age group are the second highest after sub-Saharan Africa,” say the authors. “Today, as the Middle East experiences a demographic boom along with an oil boom, the region faces a historic opportunity to capitalize on these twin dividends for lasting economic development.”

An October 2008 brief from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs uses examples from Africa and Latin America to explore ways to ensure that non-renewable resource revenues contribute to sustainable development.

Video is now available for “Breaking Barriers: Family Planning, Human Health and Conservation,” a session at this month’s Conservation Learning Exchange conference in Vancouver.

“[T]he careful management that helped make Alaskan pollock a billion-dollar industry could unravel as the planet warms,” warns Kenneth Weiss of the Los Angeles Times. “Pollock and other fish in the Bering Sea are moving to higher latitudes as winter ice retreats and water temperatures rise. Alaskan pollock are becoming Russian pollock, swimming across an international boundary in search of food and setting off what could become a geopolitical dispute.”

Poor rains, lack of infrastructure, and a shortage of skilled technicians have contributed to water-related disease and local-level water conflicts in Zimbabwe, reports IPS News.

If the Tripa peat forests in Sumatra continue to be cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, not only will the habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan shrink further, but millions of tons of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere, accelerating global climate change, reports the Telegraph.

A report on Somalia by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that one in six Somali children under the age of five is acutely malnourished and estimates that 43 percent of the country’s population will need humanitarian assistance through the end of the year. According to the report, poor rains, in addition to the worst levels of violence since 1990, have contributed to the humanitarian crisis.

“The number of tiger attacks on people is growing in India’s Sundarban islands as habitat loss and dwindling prey caused by climate change drives them to prowl into villages for food,” says an article from Reuters.

The current issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (some abstracts available) focuses on the links between climate change and public health.

“Can Conservation Succeed with 9 Billion People?,” a panel at the recent Conservation Learning Exchange, was described as a “bang-up session” by Margaret Francis, who blogged about it.

In an open letter on water policy to the next U.S. president, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute urges the next presidential administration to develop a national water policy; highlight national security issues related to water; expand the United States’ role in addressing global water problems; and integrate climate change into all federal planning and activity on water.

A recent survey conducted by Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that land disputes are a key threat to peace in Liberia, reports BBC News.

Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the former Soviet Union, called for a global glasnost, or openness, on environmental problems. “This financial turmoil, which will heavily affect the real economy, was absolutely predictable, and it is only one aspect of the wider crisis of all the current development systems,” said Gorbachev. “In fact, there are connected simultaneous crises that are rapidly emerging. These relate to energy, water, food, demography, climate change and the ecosystem devastation.”

The World Health Organization has developed a plan for research on the health impacts of climate change, reports the Science and Development Network.

In Poverty: Combating the Global Crisis, a paper for the Better World Campaign, Wilson Center Senior Scholar John Sewell urges the next U.S. president to focus on promoting open political and economic systems; universal education; better health systems and disease prevention; and equitable trade liberalization in order to reduce poverty.

“Somebody recently said water’s the new oil and there’s a lot to be said for that,” Tad Davis, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety, and occupational health, told Reuters. “If we don’t have water, then we don’t have the ability to perform,” said Davis.

Scientists attending the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona this week released The World’s Protected Areas, a book that examines past progress and continuing challenges in the struggle to protect some of the world’s most biodiverse places.

An Encyclopedia of Earth article examines the important role of forest-derived environmental income in the lives of the rural poor in developing countries.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a paper examining climate change’s likely effects on water resources, as well as how these changes in water resources could affect ecosystems, agriculture, human health, and the economy.

In “Warfare Ecology” (abstract), an article published in the September issue of BioScience, Gary Machlis and Thor Hanson argue that a new, holistic approach to the ecological study of warfare is needed, encompassing preparations for war, combat, and post-conflict activities.

In impoverished Chongzuo, in southern China, biologist Pan Wenshi has partnered with the local community to save the white-headed langur, a highly endangered monkey, by initiating sustainable development projects that lessen their dependence on the forest—and in turn, the pressures on the langur’s habitat.

In the latest issue of Forced Migration Review, 38 articles grapple with how climate change may affect the movement of people—and how communities can best adapt to a changing climate.

“Poverty and habitat loss go hand in hand in Madagascar and in much of the developing world, and only win-win solutions will work for conservation,” says an article in Time magazine about an innovative conservation and livelihoods project in Madagascar.

Two articles (“Economies of Scales”; “A Rising Tide”) in the Economist argue that privatizing fisheries through what are known as individual transferable quotas (ITQs) could help save the world’s dwindling fish stocks. ECSP’s fisheries series, “Fishing for a Secure Future,” highlights a variety of innovative ideas for fisheries governance and reform.

Conservation and Use of Wildlife-Based Resources: The Bushmeat Crisis, a new report from the Center for International Forestry Research, recommends ways to preserve the biodiversity of species eaten as bushmeat while also sustaining local people’s livelihoods.

The World Bank cancelled a deal with Chad to help finance a $4.2 billion, 665 mile-long oil pipeline, citing evidence that Idriss Déby’s government had not used oil profits to alleviate poverty, as had been stipulated in the agreement.

“Emergency aid to Africa continues to be made available too late, is too short-term and targeted too heavily on saving lives rather than protecting vulnerable livelihoods….food aid only addresses the symptoms of the emergency—hunger—and fails to address the real reasons for the crisis, which include a range of social, political and economic factors such as access to land and basic services, social marginalisation, climate change and poor governance,” argues a new report from CARE.

A report from swisspeace examines the role of the United Nations in linking the environment and conflict prevention.

According to Michael Shank of George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, the conflict between Georgia and Russia last month “was chiefly, if not solely, spurred by the desire for mastery over natural resources.”

The World Resources Institute has released a number of new publications on the structure and implications of natural resource decentralization, including Protected Areas and Property Rights: Democratizing Eminent Domain in East Africa and Voice and Choice: Opening the Door to Environmental Democracy.

In a speech last week, National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar hinted at the contents of Global Trends 2025, the intelligence report being prepared for the next U.S. president on future global threats. It predicts that U.S. global dominance will decline over the next several decades, as the world is buffeted by climate change and shortages of energy, water, and food. The intermediate draft of the report was reviewed this summer at a Wilson Center meeting hosted by ECSP.