Security is a serious issue worldwide and it raises many concerns, often getting to sensitive levels where governments and other stakeholders get involved from time to time in planning and preparing measures that are related to this concept. Burke (2007) explores this issue in deeper details by examining the interconnections that make up the whole issue of security. With climate change being seen as a possible security concern, it is becoming deeply critical to equally look deeper into the interconnection. How for example will its effects on sea levels affect the operations of submarines? How will its consequences related to famine touch on hunger initiated wars and how big is this threat. The paper analyzes important features of security-related studies with some securitization of the Copenhagen school by putting into question the pressing ideals of security. The possibility of security turning around to produce insecurity as a result of hiding certain things in form of agendas is also dealt with in the paper.
Human induced climate change has been given a leading through reference back in 2007 when the United States Congress was determined to have an estimate on national intelligence popularly known as the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). This is the period when the United Nation’s Security Council also placed the issue of climate change on its agenda, implying that it was slowly developing into a real global concern to the extent that even the American political leadership was considering placing it in the category defense issues. Burke rightly expresses surprise at such developments especially from the background that this is a debate that has elicited much hostility among nations in a mode that can possibly be described as failure to understand the elements of climate change while holding. There is also the issue of concern and debate around human security which is highly influential. Currently, according to Burke, this is shifting from state directed threats to individual directed threats; gradually coming building to levels of concern by several governments, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations as well. The assumption Burke makes here is that threats that are directed to individuals are now becoming influential to the point of drawing attention from remarkable society groups including governments. The implicit expression is that there is a sudden shift from states to individuals but there is also the possibility that it could as well be an addition rather than a shift per se. The feeling that environmental concerns have been hitherto topics for media and commentators is well on point. When one considers the understanding that it is only recently that states have noticed the glaring implication of environmental status and suddenly acknowledged the need to place them on top priority, it becomes crystal clear. The papers ‘exploration of the Copenhagen school presents a more fundamental understanding of the author’s critical outlook which, agreeably, is understandable with its standing. It is a reality that indeed the stakeholders have failed to employ the necessary push to ontologically relevant construction and the questions that bear on it. It is true, as Burke points out that this would ultimately lead to “normatively progressive politics”. The reference as to whether this boils down to security or not is rather implicit and seems to silently indicate that it could be a bigger outlook than just security. In fact, Burke affirms that this is the motivation behind the decade long intensive research. The implicit nature is again demonstrated more clearly by Burke himself when he talks of “implicitly working with a contrasting human security ideal”. Perhaps the key indicator by word is ‘contrasting’ which becomes more implied when human security is attached. There is the view of security as technologically political with two linked modes of totalizing power and individualizing power which work on states and individuals respectively. The claims of tendencies of security adherences on grounds of fear, national identity and patriotism are a cynical deployment on people in an environment void of thinking outside such structural meanings. In effect, the resultant connotation is the popular war on terror.
The outlook on climate change is absolutely in order and makes good meaning as the author illustrates by intense and well backed up reasoning that the approach should be designed with consideration of a holistic human angles at best. The transcending of climatic settings across all nations qualify this and perfectly so if factors like economic crisis, terrorism and human interdependency bring to mind the dependency on an earth that is so natural, borderless and available for all beings. The implied point that the United States for instance should not only concentrate on the effects of climate change to itself, but also the effects to other parts of the world since the effects are spread out. Consequently, their considerations should be equally spread out to parts where effects could be immense but with limited abilities.
In conclusion, this paper is a good critical outline on the comprehensive subject of security and what it produces as possibilities. Emerging factors like climate change and the long standing complex issues of terrorism have shaped into a subject that cuts though state-nations in more impact intensive ways than ever before. The more burning issue of climate change, as the author stresses, should be aligned on the perspective of effects on human beings. This will be a methodology that is inclusive and united for the accelerated solution of the complexity of climate change and its dire consequences should it not be tackled.