Benno Hansen's Profile

The settlers came from the nearby settlement of Yaker, an illegal Israeli settlement built on land that was taken from the villagers of Qarawit Bani Hassan.

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world’s opium and the drug is sold openly across Afghanistan

people at all levels of government who were profiting off the drug

the selling price of opium is one to five times greater than that of the next best crop which is wheat

the Taliban funnels the opium via the narco-cartel network into Pakistan

once inside Pakistan, the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) coordinate the transportation of the drug using Pakistani army trucks

the narco-cartels, Taliban and government officials are also manipulating world market prices by hoarding stockpiles of heroin and opium

An outbreak of peace is the last thing that those who profit from opium, the drug lords, the Taliban and senior members of Karzai's own administration would like to see.

The first is that conflict has the potential to emerge after a sustained period of divergent climate patterns.

climate change alone won't cause conflict but, along with other factors, will contribute to and shape it

an assassination, extreme natural event, or random act of group violence--is usually required to ignite violent conflict

climate change provoked the interaction of human societies and the Neanderthals and subsequently led to conflict

famines caused by the failed monsoons resulted in peasant revolts and fueled the intrastate conflict that drastically weakened, and then led to the complete collapse of, the Tang Dynasty

The warming in Central America that was disastrous for the Mayans was, on the other hand, fortunate for the Vikings. Warmer temperatures in the north meant their land was more hospitable to live on.

In the polar areas, "cold" conflict emerges between states seeking to exploit the new resources that warming makes available. In the equatorial area, which includes many deserts, conflict erupts over declining resources

In the polar zone, the change in temperature indirectly drives conflict behavior and the impact on inhabitable land is most important. In the equatorial zone, change in precipitation patterns is clearly a major driver,

Simply put, they are "cold" wars of opportunity versus "hot" wars of desperation.

they could also induce more cloud cover and an increasingly warm surface and ocean that have more turbulent weather patterns

deciduous trees expand into areas that currently lack other vegetation

the Arctic region could be warm enough to support a substantial population of deciduous trees within the next 10 years

"The term [water war] is definitely an oversimplification," Parthemore said. "I would never attribute any war to a single thing."

"The problem is much bigger than climate," Wolf said. "It's less climate than it is population and poverty. These are the big stressors."

"It is hard to 'win' the water unless you take over territory -- usually a costly exercise," Giordano wrote in an e-mail. "There are also a wide range of institutions set up for countries to work out water conflicts before they escalate."

"You will find many cases where individuals have fought, even shot, over water,"

it's very clear that as a species, we're not well set up to absorb this message. You could write perfect stories and have them all on the front page every day, but as long as it's not affecting people's lives they're not going to change their ways