Climate Change Threatens Our National Security

Climate change will be the defining issue of our generation. Not only does it threaten the air we breathe and the water we drink, but it poses a serious threat to America's national security.

On October 6th, 2009, I listened to Senator John Warner speak to the climate change-national security case at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. Senator John Warner, who spent thirty years in the U.S. Senate, is working with the Pew Environment Group, touring the country to talk about the climate change-national security connection. Other distinguished guests at the town hall meeting included Virginia Delegate Joseph Bouchard, Admiral John B. Natham, and Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Preston Bryant.

The panel discussed the link between climate change and national security, specifically addressing the implications for Hampton Roads, Virginia. This region where I grew up is one of the most vulnerable. If sea level rises as projected, many of the military bases, schools, and roads will be impacted because of their close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay. We need to appreciate this possibility and prepare.

Projected climate change threatens our national security in two major ways. First, U.S. dependence on oil weakens international leverage and entangles America with hostile regimes. Dependence on foreign oil exacts a huge price tag in both dollars and in lives. Second, climate change creates chaos, tension, and human insecurity. Drought, sea level rise, disappearing glaciers, and natural disasters disrupt countries and governments. Competition for natural resources, water, and food causes further destabilization. With U.S. military as the first responders around the world, our defense resources are stretched and lives are put at risk.

The time is ripe to act. The House of Representatives approved the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) on June 26, 2009 by a vote of 219-212. On November 5, 2009, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733), by a vote of 11-1. The bill now goes to the Senate floor for debate.

The Senate should advance this seminal legislation. Passing a bill on U.S. soil will send a powerful message to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. In order to reach a meaningful deal on an international scale, we need to move forward with a climate bill at home.

Let us send a signal to the rest of the world. Urge the Senate to pass the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

 

Comments

[sheila]

Actually, all Big Energy installations, particularly centralized electricity production, threaten our national security at least as much as climate change, yet they are being greenwashed as the "Solution," when they are the problem!

Do you really think that by further destroying the planet and enriching Chevron, BP, Shell, Goldman Sachs, Pickens and other mercenaries by creating a supremely hack-able "supergrid" that links to their massive, vulnerable industrial energy plants is even remotely smart? Of course not! These guys are an even bigger problem for our planet and our economy than global warming! Shove them aside, now!

The only SECURE, RELIABLE, DEMOCRATIC AND AFFORDABLE energy solution is point of use PV, conservation, storage, microwind, geothermal heat exchange, etc. It will be virtually impossible for anyone to disrupt or manipulate our electricity if we are all making our own, and using it onsite. Please do not delude yourself that more wilderness-killing centralized power plants (including Big Solar and Big Wind) will make us more secure because the opposite is true. Factor in the enormous water waste of thermoelectric power (geothermal and Concentrating solar) and you have a HUGE CRISIS on your hands.

Be smart! support loans and feed in tariffs so WE can own and produce clean, secure power on our homes and businesses.

[MissySchmidt]

Thanks, Ginna, for advancing the threat to national security and to Hampton Roads to the readers of Huffington Post! We cover this topic extensively on the region's blog: http://smartregion.org/index.php?s=climate+change

Many organizations in the region are tackling the issue from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to the Hampton Roads Research Partnership to the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, and we share their conversations on the blog and via the Hampton Roads e-News. Hope you're connected to both!

[Clay Barham]

It is the platform of the modern Democratic Party to reduce America's use of energy, to lift up the impoverished, salute the failure, reward the takers, applaud the indecisive and elevate the self-centered to assure us more of these in the future. In giving away the treasure of the nation, they increase the line for hand-outs beyond all ability to satisfy. The downward slope increases its steepness and slip each moment. The result is to assign a willing dictator the control and management of what remains. Is this the future of America, once the greatest nation in the world for individual freedom and prosperity? The 19th century Democrat was the libertarian following Jefferson, cited in THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon and claysamerica.com. The 20th century Democrat follows Rousseau and Marx and condemns individual freedom, the free market and American exceptionalism to the ash heap of history, all at the hands of Obama and his cadre of communists. Khrushchev was right, that we will impose communism on ourselves, and we are doing it right now. After all that, who cares about climate change?

[realpolitic]

The House has stepped up by passing climate change regulation and health care reform legislation. It will be the disappointment of our times if the Senate drops the ball. What a shame that Republicans would always prefer to do nothing about everything. Meanwhile, our country falls further and further behind in measures of well being like health care, education, and infrastructure development. Do Republicans think our country and citizens deserve no investment at all, just dividends in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy?

[mackbolan]

bs.....illegal immigrants threaten our national security....