Parenti Part I: Ch. 1, 2,& 3

In the beginning of chapter one, Parenti begins by describing the death of a pastoralist from the Turkana tribe, named Ekaru Loruman.  He was killed by the tribe called the Pokot, that was resident next to the Turkana tribe.  The Pokot had sent out an enormous cattle raid, that ended up killing Ekaru.  Parenti shocked me when he discussed how the Turkana people do not bury the people who were killed in a raid because they have a superstition that if they bury those who were killed in a raid, more deaths and attacks will continue into their tribe.  The bodies of raided victims are left on the ground, where they remain until they basically decompose; i thought this was extremely shocking because i didn't know tribes would just "leave" dead bodies on their land.  Parenti describe that many raids occur in tribes like Pokot and Turakana, which are in East Africa, because in the duration of droughts, many crucial resources become scarce and the men of other tribes go raiding into other tribes in hope of getting resources for their tribe. Parenti discusses how our global environment is drastically altering our earth's systematic behavior.  Just by that 1 degree Celsius increase, in over a hundred years, is changing our earth's flow, which ultimately Parenti ties this connection to the death of Ekaru-the reasoning behind this book, poverty and scarce resources due to global climate changing creating "cattle raids".

In chapter two, Parenti states a quote that really shows how bad our global environment is decreasing to, "Food insecurity, for reasons both of shortages and affordability, will be growing concern in Africa as well as other parts of the world. Without food aid, the region will likely face higher levels of instability-particularly violent ethic clashes over land ownership."  This quote from Dr. Thomas Fingar, completely describes and puts into words what happened to Ekaru in Turkana.  Ekaru is a living proof of how our earth's atmosphere is changing, and not for the good of it.  Parenti discusses how countries all over the world are coming together and saying how this earth's issue is on the verge of creating various issues in terms of countries staying strong and still standing.  

In chapter three, the old war act of the "counterinsurgency" (COIN) was discussed and shown in a way that Parenti lets us readers fundamentally understand the seriousness of our earth's climate change. Parenti brought out a very good point in my opinion, in how because of the climate change and lack of resources that's causing poverty worldwide, politicians are now focusing on "warfares" when in reality, that's not what the world needs.  Instead of leaders allowing mini wars to break out throughout the world because of this climate change, they need to come together and realize and come to a resolution that helps us deal with the change in the climate and not solve it by administering more wars. 

Quiz Question: What is the purpose of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?

Research Proposal: With all this commotion and concern about the climate change, why are there so many people coming into terms of acting out in violence and creating a bigger issue, instead of trying to unite and help resolve this serious problem at hand?