Major Environmental Problems are Also National Security Issues

Major Environmental Issues That Are Problem to National Security
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The environment is inseparable from national security. National security means that a country's fundamental organizations, infrastructure, population, and economy are protected against domestic and international risks. Sovereignty, peace, and health are critical in ensuring this. However, environmental hazards refer to anthropogenic damages to nature, such as global warming, air pollution, and unsustainable resource extraction, which negatively impact ecosystems and socioeconomic systems directly enabling national security risk. Environmental damages are among independent components in human civilizations. These are some of the worst environmental challenges facing the world today, including the acceleration of climate change (global warming), increasing water shortages, and high pollution levels (air, land, and water). Extreme weather volatility, differentiated growing seasons, transmission of diseases, and destabilization of communities are some of the effects of climate change. Fresh water availability for drinking, agriculture, and industry is restricted by water pollution and aquifer depletion. Toxic contamination leads to poor air quality and poisoning food chains, resulting in persistent public health crises. They have devastating effects in bringing down communities, creating refugees, crumbling economies, sparking wars, and giving room for repression. As a result, addressing Environmental disasters is crucial in combating National security problems. The environmental issues pose serious dangers to national security interests all over the planet. Preventing them requires urgent collaborative actions before irreversible planetary tipping points are crossed, key human rights are disregarded, and global conflicts are strengthened. The essay critically evaluates how the major environmental issues, climate change, water scarcity, and pollution that are national security issues.
Climate change exacerbates resource conflicts, destabilizes communities, and increases global tensions. As global temperatures rise, weather patterns become increasingly volatile, with more extreme floods, droughts, storms, and heatwaves. These changing weather events strain natural resources like fresh water, arable land, and food supplies, fueling war between nations as they compete for resources (Levy, 1995). Study predicts that by 2030, water demand will exceed supply by 30% (Harvey & editor, 2023). Such shortages spark conflicts between communities, ethnic groups, and nations over access rights. For example, tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia have escalated over the filling of the Grand