“Climate change is applying pressure to a society’s weakest fissures”

Europe is by some distance the world’s fastest warming continent and the Mediterranean is one of the fastest warming seas. In this half an hour chat, author and environmental journalist Peter Schwartzstein describes the lessons learned from his many years of research on the front lines of climate conflict including Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, detailed in his new book, The Heat and the Fury, and explains why Europe is already on the front lines of climate conflict, including:

- Why first person, often dangerous, reporting is the only way to prove climate change's contribution to violence

- Why "Water is the messenger by which climate change comes to your doorstep"

- How changing tuna migration patterns in the mediterranean are creating conditions for flashpoints between Greek and Turkish fishermen and their coastguards

- The role of social enterprises in mitigating climate related hostilities between communities

- Why the defence industry climate national security considerations narrative may in fact be the best way to apply positive pressure to rowing back on the tearing up of climate related policies and commitments

- The connections between increasing heat and violence against women

- How climate related drought has led to high olive oil prices which in turn has led to a spike in agricultural crime in Greece and the region

- How hard line populist parties are benefitting from the lack of clear messaging surrounding climate change

- Reading history as a coping mechanism to dealing with current crises, careers advice for young writers - and more!

Peter Schwartzstein

The Heat and the Fury UK Bookseller

The Heat and the Fury US Bookseller

Peter Frankopan - The Earth Transformed

Akshat Rathi - Climate Capitalism

Hannah Ritchie - Not the End of the world

US Department of Defence: 2018 U.S. Department of Defence Report

Social Value International