Globalism vs. Nationalism: Which Side Will Climate Change Favor?

My early years were spent in a world of national borders that were jealously guarded. Free trade was not the norm. Visas were required in many situations in which they no longer are. This was from a trend that perhaps began with the Peace of Westphalia. Then multi-national corporations went on the ascendant and we saw corporate budgets that were larger than that of most nations. National barriers broke down in the interest of global trade. The New World Order became an appellate for the phenomenon.

At the same time, I noticed a tendency towards decentralization --- the Swissification of the world. Even decades ago, it was more common for a Swiss resident to know the name of their mayor than of their president. We saw Yugoslavia break up into several nations. We saw the Quebec referenda. Of course, if Quebec separatists had managed to pull off the extrication of their province from Canada, Canada would not have survived any better than partitioned Pakistan did when India separating its two parts (which are now Bangladesh and Pakistan). We saw the USSR (do young people today even know what that term means?) break up into many nations. Today we see the extremes of walls between nations: the one Hungary has erected the length of its border with Serbia, the 700 kilometer wall between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and the developing wall between the USA and Mexico. These are high tech walls with motion detectors and modern responses.

So we have had the two conflicting forces of nationalism and globalism. A struggle of power interests. It seems to me that climate change has the potential to affect the struggle. I don’t doubt that climate is changing, although I do doubt that man has much to do with it. He has polluted his planet, but I do not think he has caused his climate. Nevertheless, climate is changing. In some cases, the effects will be extreme, either because of accelerating global warming, or because of a quick reversal into a new ice age as solar activity shifts. I anticipate mass migrations as coastlines or frost lines change and as agricultural zones shift. National borders will be tested as perhaps never before. Will they harden (along with hearts)? Or will they soften? I suspect the former, typified by the antecedent Voyage of the Damned.

The twentieth century had its two world wars, but they were not the first ones. The nineteenth century’s Napoleonic Wars was a time of world war.  The Seven Years War of the eighteenth century was a world war. The seventeenth had The Thirty Years War.  I think it unlikely that the present century will escape a large scale war. What will be its consequences?  What weapons will be used?  Will is coincide with new epidemics? We could be in for a rough ride. People who are adaptable and who have learned that happiness is not a function of circumstances but of response to the circumstances will fare the best it seems to me.