“You’ve already got a very volatile situation in these countries,” Parenti said in an interview. Throw on top of that that crop failures, disruptions in fishing — and even increases in grain prices and other vacillations in global trade — and the economic shock of global climate change in the developing world, he suggests, can prove explosive…

The analysis, to be published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reveals a striking connection between global climate and civil conflict — though the underlying mechanism driving that connection remains something of a mystery. At the very least, the researchers suggest, the findings — and future analyses based on them — might provide an avenue for policymakers and humanitarian organizations to better prepare for years in which hostilities are likely to spike…

This does not mean that global climate patterns are the direct cause of increased violence, the researchers said, but like Parenti’s catastrophic convergence, they likely play a significant role in sending populations with the right conditions over the edge.