Gracie Cook
Gracie Cook is an intern with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and a senior pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs at the George Washington University with concentrations in conflict and conflict resolution and international environmental studies and a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa.
Prior to her current position, Gracie interned in the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program as well as a DC-based international development agency and other think tanks in the area. Her passion lies mainly at the nexus of climate change and conflict, and also the role of the private sector in these settings.
Email: Grace.Cook@wilsoncenter.org
-
TEST
›In a study published in Science Advances, Mesfin M. Mekonnen and Arjen Y. Hoekstra estimate that over 4 billion people, approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, face severe water scarcity for at least one month out of the year – far greater than previous estimates of between 1.7 billion and 3.1 billion. The authors examined global water scarcity data from 1996 to 2005 on a monthly basis and at a more localized resolution to show how water scarcity affects different places at different times of year.
-
What’s Next? A Report Out From the First Planetary Security Conference
›February 18, 2016 // By Gracie CookIn November 2015, experts from a variety of fields gathered at the Peace Palace in The Hague for the Planetary Security Conference, one of the first large-scale conferences on environmental security and what is hoped to be the start of an annual series. The conference report gives a sense of the diverse discussions held in the Netherlands.
-
Water and Security Hotspots to Watch in 2016 [Infographic]
›The ongoing violence in Syria exhibits the potential for water problems – a historic drought, in this case – to exacerbate existing social and political problems and contribute to humanitarian crises. In a recently released infographic, Circle of Blue combined data from the European Commission Joint Research Center’s Global Conflict Risk Index and the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas to identify 10 hotspots around the world where water “could play a role in developing or exacerbating humanitarian crises” in 2016.
-
Climate Change, Disasters, and Security: Unconventional Approaches to Building Stability
›It is “not sufficient to look at history for lessons on how we should prepare for and prevent future security risks in a climate change world,” said Swathi Veeravalli, research scientist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Geospatial Research Laboratory, at the Wilson Center on January 14. Climate change and the extreme weather events it brings pose an “unprecedented” threat to human security. [Video Below]
-
The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Assessment on Food Security, Famine and Migration in the Sahel
›This fall, the National Intelligence Council released an intelligence community assessment of the extent to which factors such as climate change, severe weather, conflict, resource scarcity, disease, poor governance, and environmental degradation will impact peoples’ purchasing power and food availability over the next decade. They found “the overall risk of food insecurity in many countries of strategic importance to the United States will increase.”