Geopolitics: what in the world is happening?

Geopolitics in a Climate-Disrupted World

The term Anthropocene has been introduced by scientists trying to understand the earth system, its atmosphere and climate, oceans and land uses and how they are all now rapidly changing as a result of industrial civilization’s novel activities. The sheer scale of human activity is now a new element in how the earth functions, and a key part of this is because of the widespread use of fossil fuels.
Traditionally security was understood in terms of military protection and the use of firepower, or threat of it to deal with threats to particular societies. But now the human use of fire in the civilian sense, to power industry, vehicles and much else is threatening societies in new and dangerous ways. Traditional geopolitics, understood as the struggle to control parts of the earth and provide security by doing so, needs to be rethought, and quickly. Constraining firepower in both its senses is now an urgent necessity.

Lecturer – Simon Dalby

Simon Dalby is a Professor Emeritus at Wilfrid Laurier University, a Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Victoria Centre for Global Studies. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Victoria and holds a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University. His published research deals with climate change, environmental security and geopolitics. He is author of Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a Climate Disrupted World (Newcastle: Agenda, 2024), Rethinking Environmental Security (Edward Elgar 2022) and Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability, (University of Ottawa Press, 2020).