Cultural oppression and marginalization through colonization of First Nation peoples has led to a variety of physical and mental health problems. Regaining health and well-being in these First Nations communities will require interventions sensitive to cultural needs and supportive of traditional practices. Anthropogenic induced climate change has the potential to warm the region around the Hudson and James Bay lowland by 3.9-4.5 ??C. This warming will affect both the traditional and conventional food system in the communities on the western James Bay coast. Western James Bay First Nations already face high levels of food insecurity. The traditional food system is becoming weakened as people participate less in hunting activities, and will become further degraded as climate change makes hunting practices more risky and expensive. However, climate warming may provide greater cultivation potential in the region improving local production of produce if these activities are pursued. Home gardening and community gardening have the potential to improve access to fresh vegetables, nutritional choices, and community cohesion if pursued in First Nations communities.

Climate change presents a wide range of concerns that can jeopardize international security. Among those concerns are neo-Malthusian worries of diminishing natural resources. Predictive models suggest that rainfall and temperature anomalies have the potential to reduce water basins, crop production, increase land degradation among other perils that threaten human security. This concern is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa given the region’s strong dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Despite strong claims from various world leaders and scientists of a direct climate-conflict nexus, little empirical evidence has been devoted to find a systematic causal pathway of this kind. What is more, the literature not explored the relationship between climate change and low-intensity forms of social unrest. Therefore, contrary to most of the literature that explores a direct climate-conflict relationship, this dissertation contributes to the literature along two lines. First, it explores the relationship between climate change and socio-political unrest. Second, rather than simply assume a direct relationship between climate shocks and conflict, this dissertation examines: a) the effects of climate change on food scarcity, and the impact of that scarcity, in turn, on the likelihood of social unrest and conflict, and b) the effects of climate change on land degradation, that the impact of that degradation, in turn, on the frequency of communal violence.