Climate and war: no clear-cut schism

摘要

We are sceptical about the effectiveness of Andrew Solow's proposals for cooling the debate over a possible link between wars and climate change (Nature 497, 179-180; 2013). We think that the division between the two sides (quants' versus 'quals') is not as clear-cut as he implies. Solow argues that this dividing line distinguishes between those who search for connections between violence and natural phenomena, including climate-related factors (quants), and those who prefer to explain conflicts as social processes (quals). But both approaches are studied by quants as well as quals. Quants may study climate-related effects on conflicts by analysing single events in detail or by considering many wars on aggregate using statistics.