The cacophony of war grows louder daily. We find ourselves at a level of global volatility that the older among us will remember from decades past. What’s different about this cycle of violence is that we now have an acute climate crisis underpinning it all, which makes Arthur Snell’s Elemental a prescient read.
The interconnectedness of geopolitics and climate change is akin to the most complex structure your imagination can conjure. Elemental is therefore a tough read, but a valuable one. Snell presents us with some fascinating geopolitical nuances. For example; how food can be a motivator for war, as in the case of Russia invading Ukraine; or how it can be a motivator against war, as in the case of China not invading Taiwan. He brings together a wide array of topics in Elemental – geography, history, climate science, politics, immigration and technology, to name a few.
The book is in four parts – earth, air, fire, water – a simple structure (if somewhat contrived), which belies an intricate and comprehensive presentation of the many ways in which geopolitics and climate change interact. Although evidence-focused throughout, Snell does set out some bold projections – that where energy dominated the 20th century, food will replace it in the 21st; or that global migration is the natural answer to the demographic challenges of advanced economies.
A fascinating section in part two describes how China is home to a region particularly susceptible to humid heat, and subsequently likely to become uninhabitable faster, under current climate projections. Unlike similarly threatened areas, it borders Russia, which is currently home to one of the largest areas of uninhabitable land on our globe. Snell speculates that we may see the displacement of millions of Chinese into Siberia – as one region enters the danger zone, its neighbour moves out of it – raising interesting questions about the current Russian-Chinese partnership.
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A key takeaway of this book is how the acts of individual nation states increasingly impact on the global climate crisis that affects us all. Whether through war, defence, agriculture, industry or trade, it no longer seems viable to plan or execute national ambition without far-reaching climate effects. Another takeaway is that climate change influences who holds power in our world, and that its influence will only increase.
Sinéad Gibney is a Social Democrat TD for Dublin-Rathdown.
