Scholars predict that up to 50 million people worldwide will be displaced by 2010 because of rising sea levels, desertification, dried up aquifers, weather-induced flooding and other serious environmental changes. By the year 2050 that number could reach 150 million.

The political and social stresses that accompany such mass numbers of people entering different regions of the world are in part a source of the many violent conflicts being fought today.

In the ongoing debate over what to do about climate change rarely do we hear about the issue as a matter of national and global security.

But two experts hope the debate over global warming will start to include a broader look at our long term security.

Ambassador Bo Kjellén is Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. He also served as Sweden’s Ambassador to Hanoi shortly after the Vietnam War.

And Peter Wallensteen is Research Professor of Peace Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

Many people interested in Peace Studies, while others are interested in climate change and getting it under control. On the surface there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the two and I asked Bo Kjellén if the two are related…