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he real ity of climate change has already begun to affect some groups of people.
In small island states and low- lying areas of par tic u lar states, the rise of the
oceans is already shrinking land available for agriculture. Bangladesh is one of
the most vulnerable states. As many as 1.5 million in Dhaka, the capital, are estimated
to have moved from near the Bay of Bengal, where rising tides affect areas in the
river delta and where salty rivers now poison the agricultural fields. In Pacific islands
like Kiribati and Fiji, governments have been relocating residents from outlying islands
after saline water has ruined crops and contaminated freshwater supplies. And, in
Alaska, 30 native villages are about to dis appear as sea ice and the permafrost melt.
As President Barack Obama noted in 2015, “Climate is changing faster than our efforts
to address it.”^1
States and peoples are interconnected and interdependent to a degree never pre-
viously experienced, thanks in large part to new technologies. Climate change is but
one example. Economic globalization is another. Human rights, both as norms and as
emerging international law, are another. As the world shrinks and its population
expands, environmental, health, and crime prob lems (and solutions) once limited by
geography and climate are becoming increasingly shared or “transnational.”TransnaTional issues:
The environmenT,
Global healTh, and
Crime