The prospect of war, famine, pestilence and death how the four horsemen of the apocalypse are tipping the world into turmoil
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Pastor Dale Morgan
Aug 22, 2011, 9:29:22 PM8/22/11
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The prospect of war, famine, pestilence and death how the four horsemen of the apocalypse are tipping the world into turmoil
How the world could be tipped into chaos
William Hutchings
22 Aug 2011
Financial News Network
The prospect of war, famine, pestilence and death – the four horsemen of the apocalypse – tipping the world into turmoil is more likely than most people, most of the time, can bear to think about. Asset managers, however, see signs that these harbingers of disaster have already arrived.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: viewed as a matter of myth but the reality is just as terrifying
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: viewed as a matter of myth but the reality is just as terrifying
Glyn Jones, a managing director of investment consultant and asset manager P-Solve, said: “I don’t think people realise how easily things could go awry over the next couple of years. There is a real possibility of civil unrest in economies that we’ve come to think of as quiet. There is a non-trivial chance of a major war.”
In his 2010 book, Breaking the Code of History, David Murrin, co-founder of UK hedge fund manager Emergent Asset Management, said a major war within the next two decades was almost unavoidable.
He wrote: “Population growth is now exerting intolerable pressure on the world’s resources. I believe it is inevitable that, unless addressed, the geopolitical tensions caused by Chinese expansion and the competition for resources will bring the world to a third global war by 2025.”
Dangerous optimism
A report, Project Armageddon – Thinking the Unthinkable, published last month by broker Tullett Prebon, said the UK government is basing much of its policy on the assumption that economic growth will reach 2.9% by 2012-2013. Tim Morgan, the report’s author, described this assumption as “pretty heroic”. If the growth rate were half as high as this assumption, Morgan calculated, the UK would enter a vortex of rising debt and spending cuts.
James Martin, Oxford Martin School: The Earth could be like a lifeboat that’s too small to save everybody
Others are also making economic assumptions that look wildly optimistic to brokers and fund managers, Jones said: “All major developed economies are at it. Their interdependence means economic deprivation is a significant possibility.”
That could fuel civil unrest on its own, but the risk of trouble around the world is heightened by the second major drought in two years. Americans are comparing this summer with the 1930s dust bowl.
Ukraine suffered the lowest rainfall since 1975 in the first half of the year. More than four million Chinese face water shortages, according to the country’s official figures published this month. Somalia faces disaster.
The consequences of this year’s problems remain unclear, but observers such as Jones point out food and water shortages are triggers for conflict.
Even if wide-scale military engagement is averted over the next two or three years, the world is a tinderbox waiting for a spark, according to some asset managers.
Murrin pointed out that China and India depend on Himalayan glacial meltwater for much of their water supply. China’s dependence on this is set to grow as it implements a project to divert water from the south of the country to the north. With the glaciers predicted to recede, the potential for a conflict is obvious.
Guy Hands, chairman of buyout firm Terra Firma, is also worried. He wrote last August: “In the last 50 years, one can point to any number of events that might have led to wider conflict. Then, however, there was a world political order that helped maintain balance. Now, though, we are shifting to a multipolar world without a well-defined system of containing conflict.”
Hands picked out North Korea, Mexico and the former Yugoslavia as areas where crises could develop. He said: “No one is in a position to keep North Korea in check. I would say the odds of a full military conflict involving North Korea are one in 10.
“Mexico’s drug war has 45,000 troops engaged in fighting the cartels. This situation could pose a challenge for the US if the drug war was to spill over into the US.
“If Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro find their path to EU membership blocked and their banking sectors in trouble, it could increase the demands on the European peacekeeping mission and the need for economic support.”
Triple whammy
Others have expressed longer-term concerns. James Martin, the benefactor of the Oxford Martin School, an interdisciplinary research institute, wrote in Oxford Today university magazine: “If we continue… three crunches are coming: our global footprint greatly exceeding what the Earth can support, climate destabilisation becoming severe, and fresh water becoming insufficient to feed the Earth’s large population.
“By mid-century, the Earth could be like a lifeboat that’s too small to save everyone. There is already discussion of who the survivors might be. Europe, in my mind, is a question mark. Japan will struggle.”
Martin expressed concern about climate change. He wrote: “Almost certainly, the average world temperature in the late 2030s will exceed 2˚C above the baseline that has existed since civilisation began. If we don’t act strongly to stop it, it will keep climbing to 4˚C or higher.”
An increase of 4˚C could make sea levels rise to six metres by the end of this century, says a 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Another paper, The Rising Tide, published in April 2007 by Gordon McGranahan, Deborah Balk and Bridget Anderson, says a 10-metre rise in sea level in 2007 would have displaced 634 million people. Humans do not have a record of managing distress on this scale without resorting to war.
The prospect of war, famine, pestilence and death how the four horsemen of the apocalypse are tipping the world into turmoil
How the world could be tipped into chaos
William Hutchings
22 Aug 2011
Financial News Network
The prospect of war, famine, pestilence and death – the four horsemen of the apocalypse – tipping the world into turmoil is more likely than most people, most of the time, can bear to think about. Asset managers, however, see signs that these harbingers of disaster have already arrived.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: viewed as a matter of myth but the reality is just as terrifying
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: viewed as a matter of myth but the reality is just as terrifying
Glyn Jones, a managing director of investment consultant and asset manager P-Solve, said: “I don’t think people realise how easily things could go awry over the next couple of years. There is a real possibility of civil unrest in economies that we’ve come to think of as quiet. There is a non-trivial chance of a major war.”
In his 2010 book, Breaking the Code of History, David Murrin, co-founder of UK hedge fund manager Emergent Asset Management, said a major war within the next two decades was almost unavoidable.
He wrote: “Population growth is now exerting intolerable pressure on the world’s resources. I believe it is inevitable that, unless addressed, the geopolitical tensions caused by Chinese expansion and the competition for resources will bring the world to a third global war by 2025.”
Dangerous optimism
A report, Project Armageddon – Thinking the Unthinkable, published last month by broker Tullett Prebon, said the UK government is basing much of its policy on the assumption that economic growth will reach 2.9% by 2012-2013. Tim Morgan, the report’s author, described this assumption as “pretty heroic”. If the growth rate were half as high as this assumption, Morgan calculated, the UK would enter a vortex of rising debt and spending cuts.
James Martin, Oxford Martin School: The Earth could be like a lifeboat that’s too small to save everybody
Others are also making economic assumptions that look wildly optimistic to brokers and fund managers, Jones said: “All major developed economies are at it. Their interdependence means economic deprivation is a significant possibility.”
That could fuel civil unrest on its own, but the risk of trouble around the world is heightened by the second major drought in two years. Americans are comparing this summer with the 1930s dust bowl.
Ukraine suffered the lowest rainfall since 1975 in the first half of the year. More than four million Chinese face water shortages, according to the country’s official figures published this month. Somalia faces disaster.
The consequences of this year’s problems remain unclear, but observers such as Jones point out food and water shortages are triggers for conflict.
Even if wide-scale military engagement is averted over the next two or three years, the world is a tinderbox waiting for a spark, according to some asset managers.
Murrin pointed out that China and India depend on Himalayan glacial meltwater for much of their water supply. China’s dependence on this is set to grow as it implements a project to divert water from the south of the country to the north. With the glaciers predicted to recede, the potential for a conflict is obvious.
Guy Hands, chairman of buyout firm Terra Firma, is also worried. He wrote last August: “In the last 50 years, one can point to any number of events that might have led to wider conflict. Then, however, there was a world political order that helped maintain balance. Now, though, we are shifting to a multipolar world without a well-defined system of containing conflict.”
Hands picked out North Korea, Mexico and the former Yugoslavia as areas where crises could develop. He said: “No one is in a position to keep North Korea in check. I would say the odds of a full military conflict involving North Korea are one in 10.
“Mexico’s drug war has 45,000 troops engaged in fighting the cartels. This situation could pose a challenge for the US if the drug war was to spill over into the US.
“If Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro find their path to EU membership blocked and their banking sectors in trouble, it could increase the demands on the European peacekeeping mission and the need for economic support.”
Triple whammy
Others have expressed longer-term concerns. James Martin, the benefactor of the Oxford Martin School, an interdisciplinary research institute, wrote in Oxford Today university magazine: “If we continue… three crunches are coming: our global footprint greatly exceeding what the Earth can support, climate destabilisation becoming severe, and fresh water becoming insufficient to feed the Earth’s large population.
“By mid-century, the Earth could be like a lifeboat that’s too small to save everyone. There is already discussion of who the survivors might be. Europe, in my mind, is a question mark. Japan will struggle.”
Martin expressed concern about climate change. He wrote: “Almost certainly, the average world temperature in the late 2030s will exceed 2˚C above the baseline that has existed since civilisation began. If we don’t act strongly to stop it, it will keep climbing to 4˚C or higher.”
An increase of 4˚C could make sea levels rise to six metres by the end of this century, says a 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Another paper, The Rising Tide, published in April 2007 by Gordon McGranahan, Deborah Balk and Bridget Anderson, says a 10-metre rise in sea level in 2007 would have displaced 634 million people. Humans do not have a record of managing distress on this scale without resorting to war.
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