In February of this year, in the middle of the delicate political situation in Egypt, The New York Times published an article called, ”Climate Change Drives Instability, U.N. Official Warns.” The article covered a recent speech by the Executive Secretary of UN for climate change, Christiana Figueres. According to Figueres, climate change has contributed enormously to the scarcity of food and potable water in many developing countries. This has significant impact on civil and political stability. The correlation between environmental issues and recent civil unrest suggests that countries must take serious action to solve environmental issues or civil movements will continue to occur.
The same month, Harvard Business review published “Reinvent Your Business Before It’s Too Late,” an article about strategies for surviving in today’s changing and unstable business environment. Another article in the same issue, “How to Design a Winning Business Model” also discussed the urgent necessity of redesigning business models to improve economic performance in new markets. However, the need to improve social responsibility and environmental consciences in business was not mentioned in either the strategies or examples presented.
All three articles pointed out the need for stronger economies and also the reality of growing social and political instability. All of these issues are important and unsolved, but more importantly, they’re all connected. The final consequences of climate change are not yet known and connections between environmental issues and civil unrest are only beginning to be evident. These intrinsically connected issues will probably remain unsolved until the economic, social, and environmental issues are handled as a interrelated system.
