Climate change tends to focus on what individuals can do to prevent their carbon footprint, or on what businesses are not doing. But the devastating impact of climate change on developing countries is rarely discussed. The global south is both more socially and environmentally vulnerable, not to mention often politically unstable. According to Christian Parenti, contributing editor for The Nation and author of Tropic of Chaos, this is a lethal combination that will have global repercussions.

Parenti joined the Leonard Lopate Show today to discuss the release of his new book, and to explain how easily climate change translates into political violence. For more on global warming’s violent side effects, read Parenti’s article in this week’s issue, Pakistan: One Year After the Floods.

—Anna Lekas Miller