The BAU (Business-As-Usual) Scenario

The prelude to breakdown

Critical conditions arise in the regions most directly exposed to the pernicious effects of climate change.  In these regions, home to hundreds of millions of inhabitants,

—        changing weather patterns create drought, devastating storms, and widespread harvest failures;
—        coastal areas are flooded by rising sea levels;

famine is spreading in areas dependent on adequate rainfall for food production and exposed to tornados, hurricanes and violent storms;

massive waves of migrants from the worst-hit areas to areas where resources are more assured.

The breakdown of the poorest and most directly exposed regions creates a global security threat.

— Epidemics of infectious diseases spread over Africa, Asia, and the Americas owing to heat waves, outbreaks of agricultural pests, and contaminated drinking water;

The waves of migration to relatively well-off regions overload the local resource base and create conflict with the established populations;

Terrorist groups, nuclear proliferators, narco-traffickers, and organized crime form alliances with unscrupulous entrepreneurs and expand the scale and scope of their activities.

On the way to breakdown

(a) the economic and political processes

•    Terrorism spreads, together with declared and undeclared attacks on countries suspected of harboring terrorists;

The North Atlantic alliance linking Europe, the United States and Russia collapses;

France, Germany, Russia, and China form a coalition to balance what they perceive as growing US military-economic hegemony, joined by Brazil, India, South Korea, and other developing countries;

Global military spending experiences a sharp rise, as on the one hand the U.S. and its allies, and on the other the opposing bloc countries enter the spiral of arms race;

Global economic stagnation combined with U.S. unilateralism weakens the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization and, as regional economic agreements become more attractive than multilateral trade arrangements and bilateral trade with the U.S., trade wars become frequent and destabilizing;

•          North-South trade agreements are cancelled and trade flows disrupted; the international economic/financial system is in shambles;

People pressed into poverty join rebellions against local landowners and government officials.

(b) the ecological dimensions

•    Water and food shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa, China, Southern Asia, and Meso-America generate water- and hunger-wars ;

•    Starvation and unsanitary conditions accelerate the spread of HIV/AIDS, SARS, and other epidemics;

The Gulf Stream vacillates, producing icy temperatures in spring and summer in Western and Northern Europe.

(c) the military fallout

Political and economic conflict between the U.S. and its allies, and the opposing military-political bloc reaches a crisis point; hawks and armaments lobbies press for the use of weapons of mass destruction;

•          Strong-arm régimes come to power in the developing world, determined to use armed force to right perceived wrongs;
Regional wars erupt in the traditional hot-spots and spread to neighboring countries;

The major military-political-economic power-blocs decide to make use of their arsenals of hi-tech weaponry to achieve their economic and political objectives;

•          Some among the new strong-arm régimes insert nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons to resolve regional conflicts;

War fought with conventional and non conventional weapons escalates to the global level.