The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

12 MAY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL and Climate Change: A Climate and Security Correlations Series.” In five essays, scholars identify ways in which various environmental events, both internationally and in North Africa and the Middle East, led to social and political change in North Africa and the Middle East. Collectively, the con- tributors make a plausible case for the connection, in contrast with the many casual observers who have asserted that social media drove the Arab Spring. In her preface, Anne-Marie Slaughter (a former director of policy planning at State, now an international affairs and politics professor at Princeton) writes that the effects of global climate change “significantly increased the interactive effects—and hence the overall impact— of political, economic, religious, demo- graphic and ethnic forces.” As she notes, the region is particularly vulnerable to such shocks. Because they have relatively little arable land and water resources, many countries in North Africa and the Middle East must import between a quarter and half of their food. Given this dependence on imports, the markedly poor global wheat harvest from 2009 to 2011 had a devastating impact on these governments’ stability. The poor harvest was caused by various environ- mental factors: an historic drought in China, brushfires in Russia, record rainfall in Canada and freezing storms in the United States—all at least implicitly linked to global warming. As Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo argue in their essay, “Global warming may not have caused the Arab Spring, but it may have made it come earlier.” —Jeff Richards, Editorial Intern Salvaging Somalia I n January the Obama administration officially recognized the government of Somalia for the first time in more than two decades. Somalia has been regarded by many as the epitome of a failed state since the outbreak of civil war in 1991. The fighting soon devastated the country’s infrastructure and agricultural produc- tion, which fed further competition for limited resources. In 1992, Washington organized and led a successful international coalition to restore order and alleviate the famine. However, Somalia fell back into chaos in 1993 when the United States withdrew from the country after 19 American troops were killed in Mogadishu. After years of internal conflict and political violence, a Transitional Federal Government was created in 2004 with the SITE OF THE MONTH: www.greatergood.com W hen we last featured this amazing resource as our Site of the Month, back in March 2012, it was known as The Hun- ger Site.com —and this department was still called Cybernotes. Not long after we reinvented it as Talking Points last fall, the sponsors of The Hunger Site.com expanded the range of activities the portal supports, rebranding it as Greater- Good and giving it a makeover. The genius of the site is still intact, however: Donate funds to various worthy causes simply by clicking on a button, with every cent going directly to the site’s charitable partners. It’s free, doesn’t generate spam, and you don’t have to give any personal information or sign up for anything to take part. Though you can only donate once a day from any single com- puter, you can access the site from home and work to double your contribution if you wish. Since its launch in June 1999, the site has established itself as a leader in online activism. More than 300 million people from around the world have donated the equivalent of $29 million to nonprofit charities operating both in the United States and around the world. Each day the new GreaterGood component of the site features a discrete project (e.g., send two girls to school, provide 10 pallets of food for pet shelters, save five acres of rainforest). You can then click on any or all of the eight sister sites, which variously use donations to fight hunger, breast cancer and diabetes; promote child health and literacy; feed and assist homeless and hungry veterans; treat children with autism and raise awareness of the issue; protect rainforests; and support animal rescue initiatives. (Icons for each site are prominently displayed at the top of the GreaterGood homepage.) Visitors can help even more by shopping for items displayed on each of the eight sites. Each online store offers a wide array of fair-traded, handcrafted items from around the world and lists opportunities to volunteer for a more hands-on role in supporting these causes. —Steven Alan Honley, Editor