Only the alt solves the terminal impact

Towards a feminist environmental security perspective: The above discussion has demonstrated that there remains a high degree of debate over the best way to conceptualize the link between the environment and security, and that all three perspectives securitizing the environment have uneasy relationships with feminist approaches to security. The addition of gender to the environmental conflict perspective would be a transformative force. The environmental security perspective is more compatible with feminist scholars' understandings of the referents of and threats to security, but still neglects gender. While the ecological security approach has an overlap with various feminisms, it is ecocentric where feminists are fundamentally concerned with gender subordination. This chapter argues that a feminist approach is an appropriate alternative discourse. Based on the analysis of the intersections between the current approaches to security and the environment and various feminisms, I assert that environmental security perspectives that incorporate gender analysis and build on elements of the existing debate will be a fruitful addition to international environmental politics and International Relations in general. Perspectives securitizing the environment might be the right entry vehicle for feminist approaches, and feminist approaches might clarify debates between perspectives about the environment and security. As there are multiple approaches to the environment and security, there are also multiple feminisms, each of which would have different contributions to perspectives of the environment and security.26 Here, rather than setting up a debate between different feminisms, I offer some suggestions about how some of the various feminist traditions can be used to inform the environmental security debate and what a gender-focused environmental security perspective might look like. The gender-focused environmental security approach that I envision will in some respects look similar to current approaches to security and the environment, particularly the environmental security approach and the ecological security approach, however, there will be important differences between the approaches as well . A gender-focused environmental security perspective will begin with a multi-level analysis of security and the environment, paying particular attention to individuals and groups in society who face insecurities. These insecurities can take various forms and are best conceptualized as incidents that increase one's likelihood of experiencing danger, injury, or a decline in personal well-being. Examining these insecurities will involve valuing the contributions of local knowledge as well as other forms of knowledge such as scientific ones. Likewise, the notion of the environment that this approach uses is one that includes human and non-human nature as well as attention to the places where people live. To think of the environment as some distant external entity masks the close relationships that exist between humans and non-human nature as well as the severity that many environmental issues have for the livelihoods of much of the world's population, including both women and men. Conflict stemming from environmental change must be examined from a gender-focused environmental security perspective, but with specific attention paid to contextual and historic factors that contribute to violence and the impacts that violence has for members of the population in question. Rather than assume that scarcity is an unproblematic notion, it must be examined in order to determine how assessments of scarcity and plenty are arrived at, and for the benefit of whom. Power dynamics must be assessed if one is to fully understand the potential for conflict as well as all of the implications involved. Additionally, scarcity must not be thought of only in terms of a lack of access to a resource for human consumption. The needs of the environment to function productively must also be taken into account in order to determine scarcity in a given case. This reflects the fact that humans and nonhuman nature are inextricably linked and the insecurity of one has implications for the insecurity of the other. A detailed examination of scarcity will also bring to light the dominant relationship that humans most often claim over nature, which has links to other dominant relationships in society: North/South, elite/non-elite, and most importantly for this analysis. men/women. This can provoke the questioning of the "normalcy" of these relationships and hopefully invite alternative understandings of the relationships. This brings us to the issue of the potential causes of environmental insecurity. It must be acknowledged that by pointing to a factor as causing environmental insecurity, that factor also becomes the subject of proposed solutions. These factors must therefore be examined with specific attention being given to the gender differences embedded within them. Issues of increased consumption often associated with accelerating globalization, growing population, and migrating populations are all cited as phenomena contributing to environmental degradation by scholars concerned with the environment. What must be realized is that while these factors might in fact produce environmental insecurities, they must not be taken as straightforward targets for solutions if these solutions do not examine any potential imbalanced impacts that they may have for segments of the population-women in particular. Thus far, none of the perspectives on security and the environment have engaged in determining the particular impacts that solutions targeting the above-mentioned issues may have on women. This is a necessary task for gender-focused environmental security perspectives. An environmental security perspective that includes gender will also be amenable to solutions that reject the dominant institutional or societal structures. While sustainable development and environmental peacemaking may provide increased security for both the environment and some individuals in society, they do nothing to challenge the patriarchal structures that allow for the continuation of valuing male-ness over female-ness, thus they cannot be the final solution to insecurity. Through the analysis of environmental issues that directly impact people's lives, feminist environmental security scholars can both determine particular gender-differentiated impacts, responses and contributions to environmental degradation as well as call attention to the gendered assumptions in society through which these issues are typically understood. In sum, some of the issues that are brought to light when gender is included as a fundamental aspect of environmental security are as follows: • Multilevel analysis of security and the environment are essential. • Broad and critical conceptualizations or' security, environment, and scarcity are necessary. • Particular attention must be paid to the unique security situations of women. • A close relationship between humans and non-human nature must be acknowledged. • What happens during times of conflict as well as their causes must be examined. • The impacts of militarization on both the environment and human beings must be examined. • The causes of environmental insecurity must be critically assessed as well as their potential impacts for segments of the population. • Attention must be given to multiple sources of knowledge. • Potential solutions that reject the dominant institutional or societal structures must be entertained. An environmental security perspective with a gender focus can use these issues to build on the existing debate over security and the environment and to revise some aspects and add gender analysis.