Here are some useful links to environment, population, and security work that recently crossed my desk.

• China’s willingness to cut exports of rare earth elements to Japan over its East China Sea dispute woke up the larger world to the heavy dependency on China for supplying these key inputs into the modern (and green, in particular) industrial economy. Chinese attempts to take back their shot across the bow are bound to fail, as illustrated by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke’s call for the G20 to guarantee rare earth access, Wednesday at the Wilson Center.

• The National Geographic headline, “Replacing Oil Addiction With Metals Dependence?” raises another key long-term question, explored in detail on NSB in several previous posts.

Here are some useful links to environment, population, and security work that recently crossed my desk.

• NYU’s Richard Gowan dissects UK development minister Andrew Mitchell’s encouraging speech identifying conflict-affected states as special DFID priorities. Gowan pulls out highlights from the speech and parses NGO reaction to it on Global Dashboard.

• Council on Foreign Relations’ Isobel Coleman provides five practical suggestions for tapping into women as the “new global growth engine,” on Forbes.

• The Aspen Institute announced its Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health this week. Their goal: meeting unmet demand for family planning services by 2015 on the MDG schedule. That is over 200,000,000 women who want services but do not have access.

• I’m heartened to see the U.S. Senate pass the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act. Hoping the House will follow suit. Last time Congress passed legislation on water, sanitation, and health priorities, the 2005 Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support.

• Colby historian Jim Fleming, writing in Slate, puts the increasing fascination with geoengineering as a climate response “option” in some sobering historical context. “Weather as a Weapon: The Troubling History of Geoengineering” is the short read. Tune in to hear Jim present the book length version, Fixing the Sky, at the Wilson Center, October 6th at 10:30 am EST.

Follow Geoff Dabelko (@geoffdabelko) and The New Security Beat (@NewSecurityBeat) on Twitter for more population, health, environment, and security updates.

Here are some useful links to environment, population, and security work that recently crossed my desk.

• Need a break from the raging debate set off by Halvard Buhaug’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences quantitative-based critique of climate and African civil war linkages (or lack thereof)? Check out some of the correlations Cullen Hendrix and Idean Salehyan of University of North Texas find in their piece “After the Rain: Rainfall Variability, Hydro-Meteorological Disasters, and Social Conflict in Africa.”

• A German military think tank report worries about the economic and political implications of peak oil over a relatively short time frame.

• Militaries’ humanitarian responses to extreme weather events rather than actual shooting wars are the focus of “The Coming Conflicts of Climate Change,” by U.S. Navy Foreign Area Officer Michael Baker. Baker is writing for the Council on Foreign Relations as one of their International Affairs Fellows.

• Oxfam America and IUCN staff experts call for greater consideration of different gender roles in addressing climate change. UN climate institutions are targeted in the IPS story.

• Journalist Steve Solomon highlights the high politics of transboundary water in Asia with a piece in Forbes. China’s control of the Tibetan water tower with massive dam building amps up the pressure in South and Southeast Asia.

• Canadian scholar Eric Kaufmann’s book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? breaks down relative population growth rates between the religious and the secular. One is high, one is below replacement level. So far the book is only published in Europe but you can get it from Amazon UK.

• The highly respected science journal Nature editorializes against the rising tide of loud anti-science demagoguery. Strong words on the U.S. political context.

Follow Geoff Dabelko (@geoffdabelko) and The New Security Beat (@NewSecurityBeat) on Twitter for more population, health, environment, and security updates.