Skip to content
Longterm Wiki
Back

The Council on Strategic Risks Significantly Expands Its Ecological Security Program

web

Tangentially relevant to AI safety through the lens of systemic and existential risk governance; illustrates how non-AI catastrophic risks are being institutionalized in policy communities, which may inform multi-risk coordination frameworks.

Metadata

Importance: 22/100press releasenews

Summary

The Council on Strategic Risks announced a significant expansion of its Ecological Security Program, which addresses the intersection of environmental degradation, climate change, and national/global security risks. The program focuses on how ecological disruptions can compound existing geopolitical instabilities and create cascading systemic threats.

Key Points

  • The Council on Strategic Risks is scaling up its Ecological Security Program to address growing environmental threats to global stability.
  • The program examines how climate change and ecological breakdown interact with security risks, conflict, and geopolitical instability.
  • Expansion reflects increasing institutional recognition that ecological risks are strategic security concerns, not merely environmental issues.
  • The initiative connects environmental science with national security policy communities to bridge disciplinary gaps.
  • Broader ecological security framing is relevant to existential and catastrophic risk communities studying compounding global threats.

Cited by 1 page

PageTypeQuality
Council on Strategic RisksOrganization38.0

Cached Content Preview

HTTP 200Fetched Apr 5, 202611 KB
RELEASE: The Council on Strategic Risks Significantly Expands Its Ecological Security Program « The Center for Climate & Security 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 Home 

 About 

 Advisory Board 

 Team 

 Programs 

 Policy 

 Publications 

 Press 

 Resource Hub 
 
 U.S. Government 
 
 Congress 

 Defense 

 Diplomacy and Development 

 Government Accountability Office 

 Homeland Security 

 Intelligence 

 National Academy of Sciences 

 White House and Interagency 

 

 Non-U.S. Governments, Regional and Int’l Institutions 

 Academic, Think Tank & NGO 

 Additional Sources 

 

 Contact 

 

 
 
 
 The Center for Climate & Security 
 

 Exploring The Security Risks of Climate Change

 

 
 
 Search 
 
 Search 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 The Center for Climate & Security 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 Home » climate and security » RELEASE: The Council on Strategic Risks Significantly Expands Its Ecological Security Program 

 RELEASE: The Council on Strategic Risks Significantly Expands Its Ecological Security Program

 

 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

 October 20, 2021 — To fill an urgent gap in understanding and addressing the security implications of global ecological disruption, the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) has significantly expanded its Ecological Security Program over the past months, with the help of a grant of close to $1 million from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. The program, housed within CSR’s Converging Risks Lab, addresses all elements of global ecological disruption, including biodiversity loss and beyond, caused by drivers such as habitat change, direct (and often illegal) exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and the spread of damaging invasive or otherwise destructive organisms. 

 Ecological disruption–from the loss of biodiversity and their ecological benefits that support life or through the emergence of new ecological harms–remains largely absent from the agendas of the U.S. and international security communities. This absence persists despite its profound implications for political instability, geopolitical clashes, food and water stress, mass displacements of people, and other adverse security outcomes.

 

 The warnings on biodiversity loss are increasingly dire. In 2020, a World Wildlife Fund report declared that losses were occurring at a rate unprecedented in history, with an average 68 percent decline in mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish since 1970. These global statistics underplay the extreme destruction in some regions, such as the tropics, while failing to capture declines in insects and other invertebrates that underpin ecological networks in soil, marine, and freshwater systems. UN Secretary General António Guterres echoed these sentiments last week during a major international conference devoted to combating biodiversity loss, warning of humanity’s “su

... (truncated, 11 KB total)
Resource ID: 00f527cd9381b7ca | Stable ID: Yzc3OTRhMD