The concept of "environmental security" has emerged as one basis for
understanding international conflicts. This phrase can mean a variety of
things. It can signify security issues stemming from environmental
concerns or conflicting needs, or it can mean that the environment is
treated as a resource for the long term, and the question is what should
be done today to preserve the quality of the environment in the future.
In the same way that energy security is about ensuring access to energy
for the long run, it can also mean that pressing environmental concerns
create a situation where different countries and communities are forced
to collaboratively design a unified response, even if cooperation is not
generally in the logic of their relations. Over the last several years,
the authors of this book and their colleagues have tried to demonstrate
the power of risk assessment and decision analysis as valuable tools
that decision makers should use for a broad range of environmental
problems, including environmental security. Risk analysis is almost more
a state of mind or a way of looking at problems than it is a kind of
algorithm or a set of recipes. It projects a kind of rationality on
problems and forces a certain degree of quantitative rigor, as opposed
to the all too common tendency of making environmental recommendations
based on anecdotal evidence.