We spend the hour with Dr. Nafeez Ahmed who is a bestselling author, investigative journalist and international security scholar. He is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development. His newest book is “Zero Point,” a science fiction thriller that “explore[s] the self-defeating hubris of an all-powerful national security state in an era of converging environmental, energy and economic crises.” His novel predicted current events in the Middle East, particularly the recent US airstrikes in Iraq. We’ll explore the climate crisis, resource wars (particularly for energy), the growing surveillance state and more.
Listen Here:
Connecting Climate Change, Militarism, Surveillance and More with Dr. Nafeez Ahmed by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
Relevant Articles, Books and Websites:
Iraq blowback: Isis rise manufactured by insatiable oil addiction by Nafeez Ahmed
Pentagon preparing for mass civil breakdown by Nafeez Ahmed
Scientists vindicate ‘Limits to Growth’ – urge investment in ‘circular economy’ by Nafeez Ahmed
Exposed: Pentagon Funds New Data-Mining Tools to Track and Kill Activists, Part I by Nafeez Ahmed
Institute for Policy Research and Development
Guest:
Dr. Nafeez Ahmed – Through his books, films and journalism, Ahmed argues that a combination of political repression, failed economic models, young disenfranchised populations and escalating resource scarcity due to energy, food and water crises are contributing to what he calls a “new age of unrest.” Instability in far apart locations from Brazil to Ukraine to Thailand – as well as Syria, Egypt and beyond – are symptoms of an accelerating “global riot epidemic” due to the end of cheap oil and intensifying climate disasters.
In March 2014, Ahmed made global headlines with his exclusive Guardian report on a NASA-funded model of the risks of civilisational collapse which identified how widening economic inequalities and looming resource shortages due to ecological stress could precipitate a collapse of global industrial civilisation. In a further series of exclusives this summer, Ahmed exposed how the Pentagon and UK Ministry of Defence are funding social science and data-mining projects to develop tools to track political dissent and public opposition to fossil fuels. His exclusive reporting has also included revelations on the link between NSA mass surveillance, environmental crisis, and political activism; and how US-UK covert operations and foreign policies have empowered Gulf state-backed jihadists, fanning the flames of Middle East unrest from Iraq to Egypt to Syria.
A former lecturer in international politics at Sussex and Brunel universities, Ahmed is the bestselling, award-winning author of five books on international security issues, the latest of which is A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010) – the first peer-reviewed academic work to analyse the intersection of climate change, energy depletion, food crisis, economic turbulence, international terrorism, and state militarisation. Ahmed wrote, co-produced and presented the documentary feature film inspired by the book, The Crisis of Civilization.