May 2007: 246–250Nutrition Science and Policy

Inauguration Address for the Irwin H. RosenbergProfessorship of Nutrition and Human Security: HumanSecurity and the Pivotal Role of Science in Achieving ItPeter Walker, PhD

EDITOR’S NOTE: This short paper is the inauguration ad-dress for installing Dr. Peter Walker as the first Irwin H.Rosenberg Professor of Nutrition and Human Security atTufts University. The paper addresses the determinantsof human security, of which nutrition is a large part, andthe challenges that scientists face when doing researchon human security issues.

INTRODUCTION

Human security is the sum of all of those things thatmake you feel secure: a job, education, the rule of law,freedom from fear, and reliable and safe food. Humansecurity, unlike national security, is indivisible. Youdepend upon the commodity chain I am part of. Yoursmall-arms supply fuels my war. My pollution drivesyour climate change. Human security is pervasive, indi-visible—and under increasing threat.

In this short essay, I will do three things. First, I willlay out what I think are going to be the key determinantsof human security over the next generation. Second, Iwill highlight the applied research approaches that theFeinstein International Center, which is where this newchair is located, will pursue in promoting human secu-rity. Finally, I will reflect on the challenges in pursuingthis particular type of work through scientific research.This last point will allow me to reflect a little on whyTufts is the right place to do this work.

KEY DETERMINANTS OF HUMAN SECURITY

Over the next generation, our human security andthat of our children, whether here in the United States, in

Africa, or in just about any other location on this globe,is going to be shaped by four powerful forces:

● Climate change,● Globalization,● Empire change, and● The all-too-pervasive attitude virus of “them and

us.”All are critical, but climate change is the key factor.

Many people will have seen reference to the Stern Reportissued in the United Kingdom in early November 2006.This is not just the latest in a long line of reports buildingon the science of climate change. It is fundamentallydifferent in that it takes off-the-shelf science and asks theeconomic question “so what?”

Here’s the so what. If the big carbon dioxide emit-ters (that means the United States, Europe, China, andIndia) do not take radical action now, then by the end ofthis century:

● Rising sea levels could leave 200 million peoplepermanently displaced, most of them in the coastalplains and mega cities of Asia.

● Melting glaciers will increase flood risk, followedby seasonal drying up of major glacier-fed riverssuch as the Ganges and Brahmaputra.1

● Crop and fishery yields will be in decline, particu-larly in the tropics and subtropics, and that meansAfrica.

● In the worst-case scenario, global consumption perhead will fall 20%.2

Africa is the continent likely to be hardest hit andfirst hit by the crises induced by climate change. Weknow from studies already under way in Africa thatmany of its vital ecosystems are critically fragile andincreasingly frayed by human exploitation. The UnitedNations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) 2006 Hu-man Development Report released in mid-Novembershows how Africa’s rural population is almost totallydependent upon rain-fed agriculture for its staple foodneeds. UNDP predicts that by 2080, climate change willhave caused a 25% drop in the productivity of therain-fed systems across the African continent.3 As Afri-

Dr. Walker is Irwin H. Rosenberg Professor ofNutrition and Human Security and Director, FeinsteinInternational Center, Friedman School of Nutrition Sci-ence and Policy, Tufts University, 200 Boston Ave.,Suite 4800, Medford, MA 02155; Phone: 617-627-3361; 617-627-3428; E-mail: peter.walker@tufts.edu.

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ca’s ecology changes rapidly under the pressure of cli-mate shift, its societies and economies will have to adaptequally rapidly and radically to survive. However, nei-ther traditional systems of governance nor state systemson the continent have shown any propensity for suchrapid and peaceful change driven by the survival needsof its people. On the contrary, most rapid change hasbeen in the direction of dictatorship, increased militari-zation, exploitation, and violence. This disconnect be-tween the pace of environmental change and Africa’sability to adapt appropriately will almost certainly lead tomore poverty, more civil war, and more acts of genocideand ethnic cleansing.

The Feinstein Center’s research in northern Ugandais increasingly encountering agriculturalists and pasto-ralists fighting over dwindling water supplies—literallyfighting with AK-47’s.

Lest we forget, Africa, and indeed most of the poorsouth, basically had no hand in creating this crisis. Thecrisis is of the north. In a report released in October 2006,the London-based New Economics Forum calculates thatbetween 10 and 40 billion dollars are needed annually forAfrica to counteract the effect of northern-induced globalwarming. Industrialized countries have coughed up apittance so far to pay for their public nuisance, while theycontinue to spend 73 billion dollars a year on their ownfossil fuel subsidies.4

The Stern report also demolishes the neoconserva-tive argument that stopping global warming is just toocostly, showing that the likely cost of allowing warmingto continue is at least 20 times the cost of stopping it forthis century alone.

Reversing global warming is the task of scientists,economists, and politicians in the north. Coping with itsdire consequences is the lot of both north and south, butwe can anticipate that those in the south, weakened byunderdevelopment, poor governments, and conflict, willbe hardest hit. Allying with them to address the causesand consequences of increased insecurity should surelybe a primary objective of the human security researcher.

GLOBALIZATION AND UNCHECKEDCAPITALISM

At the same time as we are waking up to theinsidious process of global warming, we also need todeal with the consequences of globalization, the secondmajor determinant of human security. New York jour-nalist Thomas Friedman sees globalization as creating aflat world,5 a world in which location becomes less of anissue and all economies have a chance to compete in aglobal market—the ultimate expansion of free marketcapitalism. Before basking in the expectation of prosper-ity, though, we should recall our history. Adam Smith,

the 18th-century father of capitalist theory, realized thatan unfettered free market was a recipe for politicaldisaster; that the power of reason and popular need mustof necessity be there to balance greed and self interest. InThe Wealth of Nations, he praises the free market ofsmall businesses with hands-on involved owners and abenevolent state watching out for the creation of monop-olies of power and wealth. The Wealth of Nations wasactually Smith’s second great book. His first, A Theory ofMoral Sentiments, examines the role of sympathy andaltruism in shaping his vision of the New Jerusalem. Leftto themselves, unfettered free markets increase the gapbetween the rich and the poor. In the United States today,the wage differential between top CEOs and their work-ers has gone up from 40 times two generations ago to 400times today. Corporate America contributes a smallerpercentage to the country’s tax revenue today than it did100 years ago.6

The tacit assumption among rich and economicallypowerful nations is that a mix of representative govern-ment, free market economies, and reformed state struc-tures is the norm for the globalized future. Getting thereis no smooth journey.

As northern states shrink in the social welfarefields—education, health care, pension support—theygrow in the security fields, meaning more militarizationof societies, larger portions of the budget going to na-tional security and more intrusion into the police andjudicial apparatus by political and religious actors. Partlyas a rebuttal to this, but also because of the tensions andspace that these changes have created, there is a growingassertion of alternative ethnic and religious-based valuesand forms of governance. This is one of the drivingforces behind the rise of militant Islam and parallel formsof fundamentalism.

Global trade is increasingly interconnected—and notonly the trade for energy and primary resources to feedthe hungry beast of consumerism. The prosperity ofpastoralist communities in southern Ethiopia is as depen-dent upon the interpretation of World Trade Organiza-tion trade regulations for Ethiopian meat products as it isupon fodder and water availability. Local problems in-creasingly require global awareness and need globalsolutions.

Against this background, our research should seek tounderstand the complex interplay of local resources andpractices with national and global systems. Which leverswill best unlock the prosperity of farmers in northernDarfur? Which levers keep those same farmers safe fromviolent attack? Are they found in the displaced personcamps in the desert, in the corridors of power in Khar-toum, or in the negotiating halls of the World TradeOrganization in Geneva?

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EMPIRE CHANGE

Climate change and globalization represent real andconcurrent threats. They represent some threats for thesouth (and some opportunities of course), but they alsorepresent a very real threat to the presently most power-ful nation on earth. This is our third key driver.

“The king is dead, long live the king” is the tradi-tional cry of ancient regime change in Europe. Today itis empires, not kings, that come and go. In historicaltimes, we have seen the rise and fall, in fairly rapidsuccession, of the Spanish, Dutch, and British Empires,and we now look at the American empire. Where does itrest in the inevitable cycle of rise and fall?

The Dutch empire was powered by wind and water,and supplanted by the more efficient coal-fueled British.They in turn started to decline at the end of the 19thcentury as the oil-fueled empire of the United Statessurged ahead. Correlli Barnett describes Britain in thepre-World War I era as “a working museum of industrialarcheology,”7 but it wasn’t really until the 1940s that theidea sunk home to most Brits, and not until the 1960s thatit was deemed to be well and truly dead. Decline can takedecades.

Toward the end of their reigns, most empires be-come overconfident. They over-stretch themselves mili-tarily and economically. They embark upon unwinnablewars and over-borrow against the collateral of theirpower.

What does this tell us about America? Our national,cooperate, and personal debt is colossal. American con-sumers spend on average 1.6 times what they earn eachyear. We seek to make money from money, not fromproduce or goods or services. By the year 2000, the USfinancial sector outstripped by 30% the entire manufac-turing sector.8

The key issue here is that America has becomeobsessed with the here and now, with cash in hand today.Its investment in the long-term in education, in alterna-tive energy, in public health, all seem to be subservient tothe short-term bottom line. And so gradually, not with abang but a whimper, imperial nations sink back, to bejust one among many. If I were a betting man, I wouldbet that America is in the last days of its imperialoil-driven reign. History may show that it is already indecline. If it has a successor, it will be China, and here’sthe rub. We have no idea what this means for humansecurity. Will China be an imperial power concernedwith the common good or with the exploitation of themargins for the metropolitan center? Will the UnitedStates bow out graciously and adopt a statesman-likepose of international cooperation, or go down like acornered animal, lashing out at all who come near?

US AND THEM: THE SHAKY CONTRACTBETWEEN GOVERNANCE, POWER, ANDPEOPLE

All three of the processes I have touched on spell outthreats: threats to the powerful and threats to the survivalof those disenfranchised and excluded, neglected, orexploited. When people are threatened en masse, theyoften revert to their more animal instincts.

“You are either with us, or against us” in this war.“We cannot afford to be dependent for our energy oncountries where they really don’t like us and want to killus,” to quote the elected leader of one large nation. Theyare blasphemous infidels, we have a place in heaven.This polarization is like a virus, an attitude-virus of“them and us.”

Civilization nearly destroyed itself in the 1940s inthe Second World War, and as people stepped back fromthe brink, universally sickened by war, they sent apowerful message to their governments to create a newworld order that shunned the viral infection of them andus. A powerful step toward that new world order was thecreation of the United Nations.

Let me quote from the beginning of the UN charter,such a powerful vision of what could be:

We the peoples of the United Nations, deter-mined to save succeeding generations from thescourge of war, which twice in our lifetime hasbrought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaf-firm faith in fundamental human rights, in thedignity and worth of the human person, in theequal rights of men and women and of nationslarge and small, and to establish conditions un-der which justice and respect for (our) obliga-tions . . . can be maintained, and to promotesocial progress and better standards of life . . .And for these ends: (will) practice tolerance andlive together in peace with one another as goodneighbors, . . . and (will) employ internationalmachinery for the promotion of the economicand social advancement of all peoples.

In today’s atmosphere of mistrust, of survival andexpansion through aggression, of the Global War onTerror, and that terror itself, we are in grave danger oflosing the spirit and the institutions of this unique op-portunity. And of losing them at the very time in ourplanet’s history when they are most needed. We can onlysurvive climate change and empire change, we can onlymanage and shape globalization for the good of all, if wedo so through cooperation for the common good. Unitedwe stand, divided we fall: we all fall. It may sound trite,but it is true.

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KEY LINES OF RESEARCH

I firmly believe that our job as social scientists todayas we research human security is to provide the rigorousevidence needed to fight back, in a quiet but inexorablefashion, against those forces that fuel inequity and injus-tice, that assault the right to life with dignity. Thechallenge is global, its ramifications are unprecedented,and many of them are unknown. The time frame overwhich these changes will happen is uncertain. I wouldidentify four particular foci to human security researchthat we need to address in fighting back:

First, a field-based livelihoods analysis is neededthat seeks to understand, from the bottom up, just howcommunities and households under stress put togethertheir survival strategies and economies, and how institu-tions, policies, and politics impact upon these. This is thesort of research the Center is now pursuing in northernDarfur, which is uncovering the crucial role that diasporaremittances play in helping people survive the trauma ofthe conflict there.

Second, in our globalized world we need to betterunderstand the value-added chain. Just what happensbetween the coffee producer in the Ethiopian highlandsand the Starbucks consumer in Boston? Where are theleverage points that can be effected to allow Starbucks toturn a profit yet maximize the percentage of that profitthat gets back to the producer? How can we help toensure that trade is fair trade?

Third, we need to understand the holistic nature ofviolence, as distinct from force, in today’s conflicts. Inwork we are doing in Uganda and Sudan, it is clear thatinternational policies around the Global War on Terrorhave become enmeshed with local power struggles, tra-ditional tribal rivalries, and war profiteering to drive theconflict there. If we do not understand the complexity ofthis, or any other war, we have no chance of identifyingthe best places to effect change towards justice, peace,and a sustainable future.

Finally, we need to understand better what drives themajor institutions that intervene in these crises, be theygovernments, aid agencies, peacekeepers, or the Interna-tional Criminal Court. Often our best hope for effectingchange for the common good is through influencingthese institutions. To do that, it is not enough just topresent our robust field research, we need a second tier ofresearch that seeks to understand “the ecology of theintervention,” that is, just how the organizations, sys-tems, and policies that make up the intervention function.Armed with this, we can make the best use of our fieldresearch to create positive change. The Feinstein Centeris doing this through its work with the InternationalCriminal Court, the peace-building agenda in Sudan and

Uganda, and supporting strategic change processes withsome of the large, trans-national NGOs.

THE CHALLENGE OF AND TO SCIENCE

All of this research and its applications fits fair andsquare within the pursuit we call science, a pursuit that isincreasingly under attack. Before addressing that attack,let me recall the genesis and purpose of science.

William Gilbert, the father of modern science, writ-ing in 1600 fumed that “Modern philosophers, dreamingin the darkness, must be aroused and taught the uses ofthings. They must be made to quit the sort of learningthat comes only from books, and that rests only on vainarguments and upon conjectures.” A generation later,Francis Bacon laid out the basic methodology of induc-tion and the vital role of inspiration in uncovering knowl-edge. He was also convinced that the purpose of sciencewas to improve the common good. Science was appliedphilosophy for Bacon. In the 1660s, Robert Hooke es-tablished the principle of investigation through repeat-able experiments, and hard on his heels, the eccentric butbrilliant Isaac Newton added the final ingredient ofmathematical proof. For 350 years, scientific inquiry,with all of its careful checks and balances, attention torigor, and hunger for truth, has fueled the prosperity ofnations, particularly the United States.

I am concerned, though, that today the methodologyof science is under attack, and this at a time when thevery survival of our societies are dependent upon accept-ing the findings of rigorous science, and, more impor-tantly, accepting the consequences of those findings.

Science is under assault because it lays bare uncom-fortable truths. The truth that cigarettes kill, that ouragro-food system knowingly shortens the lives of thepoorest in our communities, and that climate change isfor real and is our fault.

This is the kind of headline science that is targeted,but the attack techniques of those who would rather nothear the facts are consistent, from the attacks on bigscience headlines to the footnote science on the backpage. Here are the things to watch out for:

● Distortion through funding. A 1998 review intoresearch on the health effects of passive smokingshowed that the odds of an article reaching a “noharm” conclusion were 88.4 times higher if theauthors had tobacco industry affiliations than if theywere independent.9

● The quashing of inconvenient science for politicalends. We have seen it before with the work onglobal warming. In our human security work, we seeit in the attempts to trash the epidemiological re-search from John Hopkins University estimatingthat up to 655,000 Iraqi citizens may have died in

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the war there so far,10 or the denial of the socialscience that shows that by all measures Afghansociety has got poorer, more violent, more divided,and less stable every year since the US-led inva-sion.11

● Personal attack. The deliberate character assassina-tion of individual scientists is perhaps the most crueltechnique. Most people now know of the tremen-dous pressure NASA’s top climate change scientistJim Hansen came under to water down his conclu-sions. Next on the list, and look out for this one, maybe Kevin Trenberth. He is a hurricane researcherwhose work links global warming to an increase inthe number and severity of Atlantic hurricanes—thekind of hurricane that devastated New Orleans. Dr.Trenberth has been warned in no uncertain termsthat if he persists, lobbyists in Washington will doall they can to get him fired or force him to resign.12

● The attack on the process of science itself. Thisentails the cherry picking of results to suit a partic-ular politic; the singling out of contrary research to“disprove” the case made by the majority, as ThaboMbeki does in his distortion of the cause and treat-ment of HIV/AIDS. This also involves the misrep-resenting of “real science” as being 100% certain,which of course it never is and thus remains, in thewords of the ideologue, unproven, still uncertain,and doubted by “prominent scientists.”We must learn from this. Our science must be

unimpeachable. We have four hundred years of scientificdevelopment to draw upon. We know what good scienceis, so let’s practice it and practice it for the commongood.

Let me reiterate that the irony of those who wouldattack the science of global warming or deny the “col-lateral damage” of unchecked capitalism is that humansecurity, like human rights, is indivisible. My security islinked to yours. The denial of your human rights willlessen mine.

At Tufts University, we talk of developing globalcitizens: leaders with a social conscience. Leadershipdeveloped in a university is not about the slick manipu-lation of political spin, but about the application and useof reason, the commitment to move forward with uncom-fortable and inconvenient truths. Tufts is about evidence-driven solutions. Global citizens use their leadershipskills to promote the common good, not self betterment.They seek to break down the poisonous “them and us”divide. They seek to expose and redress the processesthat lead to massive imbalances in wealth and the viola-

tion of the rights of the weakest. They seek to buildinstitutions and enterprises that realize the inalienableright of all peoples to life with dignity. They look tothings of the spirit as well as of the mind: art and music,poetry and personal relationships, freedom under thelaw, faith as well as pragmatism.

If, as a university, we can grow these sorts ofleaders, focused on human security, not narrow personalor national security, then we are truly doing our job topromote truth, liberty, and happiness.

REFERENCES

1. World Wildlife Fund. An Overview of Glaciers, GlacierRetreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India andChina. Regional Overview. Executive Summary. WWFNepal Program, March, 2005. Available online at:http://assets.panda.org/downloads/glacierssummary.pdf. Accessed April 2, 2007.

2. Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change.Executive Summary. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_exec_sum.pdf. Accessed April 2, 2007.

3. United Nations Development Programme. HumanDevelopment Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity: Power,Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. New York:UNDP: 2006.

4. New Economics Forum. Up in Smoke 2. The SecondReport on Africa and Global Warming from the Work-ing Group on Climate Change and Development. Lon-don: New Economics Forum; 2006. Available onlineat: http://www.oxfam.org.nz/imgs/pdf/africa%20up%20in%20smoke%202.pdf. Accessed April 2, 2007.

5. Friedman T. The World is Flat. A Brief History of the21st Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux;2005

6. Dobbs L. War on the Middle Class. New York: VikingPress; 2006.

7. Barnett C. The Collapse of British Power. London:Prometheus Books; 1986.

8. Phillips K. American Theocracy: The Peril and Poli-tics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money inthe 21st century. New York: Viking Press; 2006:265.

9. Moony C. The Republican War on Science. NewYork: Basic Books; 2005:10.

10. Burnham G, Lafta R, Doocy S, Roberts L. Mortalityafter the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectionalcluster sample survey. Lancet. 2006;368(9545):1421–1428.

11. Mazurana D, Stites E, Nojumi N. Human Securityand Livelihoods of Rural Afghans, 2002–2003. Med-ford, MA: Feinstein International Famine Center,Tufts University and Washington, DC: United StatesAgency for International Development; 2004.

12. Pearce F. State of Denial. New Scientist, November4, 2006: 18–21

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