Thomas Boudreau, Professor of Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution at Salisbury University
Interview Transcript
Transcribed by Otter AI
Kimberly White
Hello and welcome to Common Home Conversations. Today we're joined by Thomas Boudreau, Professor of Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution at Salisbury University. Thank you so much for joining us today!
Thomas Boudreau
My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.
Kimberly White
So, you're a Professor of Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution at Salisbury University. Can you tell us more about this and the focus of your current research?
Thomas Boudreau
Yes, we're a relatively new department. We grew out of one course taught by a charismatic professor, Phil Bosserman, and now we're an undergraduate program and a graduate program. In 2018, we were recognized as the second-best program in conflict analysis in the United States. So in a very short time, we've made a mark both in our undergraduate teaching and our graduate program.
Kimberly White
That's fantastic- congratulations! So earlier this year, renowned naturalist David Attenborough told the UN Security Council that climate change is the "biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced." Similar sentiments have been expressed by leading climate and environmental scientists. Now, you have proposed an Earth Armistice to address this existential threat. Could you please tell us more about this and the benefits such a resolution could have for our global community?
Thomas Boudreau
Yes, well, first, I'd like to recognize the extraordinary work and achievement of Sir David Attenborough. He's just a world treasure, and we should all thank the United Kingdom for sharing him with the rest of us. Extraordinary individual. Sir David is absolutely correct in characterizing climate change as the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced and certainly faces today. And we have to address this in the next 5 or 10 years, or it will become a runaway freight train. And I think if we wait too long, it'll be too late. So I asked myself, "what organization can make a global law with one vote in one day in one place?" And that's obviously the UN Security Council. And the UN Security Council is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. And there is no question that climate change is increasingly threatening the maintenance of international peace and security and will continue to do so in major ways in the coming years. So, the UN Security Council is a natural place to address this. It also, by the UN Charter, is responsible for the regulation of armaments. And so the Earth Armistice idea is, namely, for the UN Security Council to vote. As I say, and they could do this in one vote, it's not simply a resolution. They have the power, the legal authority under the charter, to make binding decisions on all the member states. That's why the great powers watch the council like a hawk. But they could vote an Earth Armistice; they could approve it, which would require every state to cut from 10 to 20 percent of its current defense budgets and devote it exclusively to addressing climate change. And to do so, nation states have to do the obvious- namely, redefine and expand their understanding of national security to include the threats that climate change presents to us today and will increasingly present to us in the future. I don't think the Earth Armistice will be adopted today or tomorrow. I think it will be adopted at some point. My fear is that it will simply be too late to address the coming storms that are now inevitable.
Kimberly White
Now, you said that the Earth Armistice would be essential to ensure sustainable development as well as achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Could you please elaborate on that?
Thomas Boudreau
There will be no sustainable development unless we develop a sustainable climate. But to do so will involve enormous costs as well as opportunities. The transition from a carbon-based global economy to a green-based global economy will involve tremendous opportunities and new jobs in a variety of sectors. And what's needed is the funding, and the global militaries now spend almost $2 trillion a year on national defense defined in terms of defending the nation state against other nations. What they need to do- and this you see this thinking already among the military, unfortunately, don't see it as much with the politicians- but what you need to do is redefine your national security in terms of sustainable development. To do that, you need to invest in green economies. There's tremendous work to be done in the conversion of current carbon-based energy sources to green sources, such as solar and wind, and making them resilient and ensuring that they can sustain the coming winds and weather that could do a lot of damage to existing infrastructure. At the same time, you want the green economies to develop the necessary negative emission technologies, or carbon sequestration, to start pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. And we've made very little or no progress in this area whatsoever, and that's, again, a reason for the Earth Armistice. Creating negative emission technologies can create hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially in the developing world, and thus encourage sustainable development and the very rapid emergence of green economies throughout the globe.
Kimberly White
I'm glad you brought up carbon sequestration- I think that's such an important part of tackling climate change. People don't realize how important natural solutions- such as soil- are to our environment and to the health of our planet.
Thomas Boudreau
Well, I think we're gonna have to go beyond soil sequestration or carbon farming, although that can play a critical role. I think we need to try a whole variety of approaches to carbon sequestration using the land and the oceans. And I'd like to make a distinction between carbon sequestration, which is land or ocean-based, and geoengineering, which is the spraying of aerosols in the atmosphere, which I am very skeptical of. Because we had an experience in the States with sulfuric acid killing the lakes, acid rain, and I think the current plans for the use of aerosols in the atmosphere, solar geoengineering, could be a repeat of that acid rain experience, if not worse.
Kimberly White
Absolutely, the risks associated with solar geoengineering are far too great. I believe that restoration efforts are essential moving forward. For instance, with the peatlands. Peatlands cover just three percent of our land globally, yet they are a carbon sequestration powerhouse. They store over 550 gigatons of carbon. And recent studies have shown that restoring some of these habitats could prevent the release of as much as 394 million tons of CO2.
Thomas Boudreau
There have to be massive restoration efforts of reforestation, aforestation, which means planting forests in areas where they don't exist. There's going to be the increasing problem of droughts and massive wildfires. The forests have to be planted or reforested in areas that aren't going to burn down anytime soon. Personally, I find the phenomenon of green lawns in front of homes to be hopelessly obsolete; I think people should get tax breaks for planting trees on 50 percent or more of their lawns. There are areas in Montgomery County, north of DC, that have one home ...
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