Why The Military Is Worried About Climate Change
Months ago, when veterans got into the fight over Clean Energy, we did so because of the firm link between Middle East oil profits and terrorism. Late last month Richard Holbrooke even stated that the Taliban is being funded by Persian Oil. In short, we're unintentionally funding both sides of the wars we're in.
What we did not realize then, but bolsters the seriousness of the case for investment in a Green Energy Economy, is that the Pentagon has been running simulations on climate change, to see how its effects would stretch our military, and put American lives on the line.
The idea that climate change might have a direct affect on American security isn't a new notion. In 2008, a National Intelligence Assessment observed that "global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years."
Military leaders are now identifying climate change and energy security as a growing threat to our national security.
What is new is that the Pentagon is now taking the threat so seriously that it has been war-gaming scenarios. The results?
In one scenario, a flood in Bangladesh "sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring India, touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure" according to a story in the New York Times. Other models put key military installations in severe danger, while melting polar ice opens up new shipping channels that must be defended.
"The demands of these potential humanitarian responses may significantly tax U.S. military transportation and support force structures, resulting in a strained readiness posture and decreased strategic depth for combat operations," the report concludes.
The risk lies in the challenges we face when these climate induced crises happen in fragile or failing states. Extremists groups move to take advantage of these situations to create a foothold for themselves...a foothold we cannot let them gain. And, conversely, if they're dealing with disasters, we might not have the forces needed to keep the Bangladesh scenario from becoming a regional conflagration in a nuclear region of the world.
Simply put, not passing a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill doesn't just mean continuing sending oil profits to terrorists. It means our men and uniform operating in a world where they are constantly deployed, overstretched, and putting their lives on the line, all to deal with scenarios that we could have prevented, but didn't.
That's why a new coalition of Veterans and National Security groups is taking to DC and to the airwaves this week, making a strong push for legislation to pass the Senate, to join the bill already passed by the House, and on to the President.
A number of groups, including the groups we head, have come together under the umbrella of Operation Free, a coalition of those concerned with our troops and national security. This week, hundreds of veterans with Operation Free are descending on the Capitol, to make the case that this is as much a security issue as anything. Operation Free is just starting, though, and will be doing much more in the weeks and months ahead.
VoteVets.org is also starting to air an ad nationally, and in the states of North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, and Michigan this week. The ad strongly and bluntly makes the case stated above, closing with "It's not just a question of American energy, it's a question of American Power."
We do not have a moment to spare, here. Yes, there are a lot of important issues being debated in Washington, today. But, to us, very few are as important as this. When it comes to our troops, our security, and our future, veterans like us won't back down.
Bill Chameides: On the Climate Bill Fence: Senator Dick Lugar
Everything seems to presage a Lugar "yes" on climate legislation. Everything but Lugar's take on the current state of the U.S. economy.
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If you have any doubt that climate change exists, go to your local farmer market and talk to the farmers. Not about climate change but about the problems confronting the farmer. They are coping with the effects of climate change right now.
At last, US energy legislation is being identified for exactly what it is: a vital national security issue. The US interstate system was built largely as a national security project. No less important is renewable energy for the US. Our dependence upon carbon energy makes our enemies stronger, the world less stable and the US more vulnerable. I am proud to say that I am involved with Operation Free and to stand with this next generation of US veterans serving our nation.
Thanks for your service! If we want to address climate change we must stress its importance as a security threat, which it is. When you consider all the unrest in the world climate change will exacerbate it greatly.
It is amazing how hysterical climate change deniers are over this article. It shows their arguments are purely emotional and, of course, not founded on anything besides insisting established science is wrong. Of course, most of what they know about climate change is misinformation anyway. Soon they will be insisting our military is part of their imagined climate change hoax invented by Al Gore. As climate change becomes more real and immediate in our lives, to deniers it will mean more are becoming part of the hoax. Soon they will just have to hide under their beds listening to Rush Limbaugh!
As I state below, the alarmists are intellectually and morally corrupt for now embracing both
the Military Industrial Complex and the corrupt scientists suckling at the government teats, as warned by Eisenhower.
Yes, the mad climate scientists and the military are both morally and intellectually bankrupt. The only ones you deniers can trust is Glenn Beck. He is the only one who speaks the truth, besides Rush Limbaugh. Soon deniers will want to get rid of all schools and places of higher education and replace it with at-home schooling and Fox News.
until the end of last year i believed in global warming
why i changed my mind?
i learned about carbon tax,and the names of the corporations funding this fraud:
Exxon,Goldman Sachs,Monsanto
Global Warming is a huge fraud in order to trillions of Dollars
Personally, i am doing my part to reduce the CO2 plantfood in the atmosphere by drinking all the CO2 i can.
Pepsi, Beer, Champagne.
balderdash being passed off as 'science' by the warmers.
BUUURRRRRR
Who cares what you believe or not? You could believe the sun revolved aroud the earth and would it matter, Of course not! What worries me is your believes are incrediblly out of sync with established science, but you hold them anywhere. To many on the far right, it is liberty to believe whatever one wants. To others, it is ignorance!
que basura.
"Taliban is being funded by Persian Oil." Most of Taliban funding is from the opium trade.
Even if the US imports NO Persion oil, said oil will be sold elsewhere. Oil is fungible.
"melting polar ice opens up new shipping channels that must be defended. " The US Arctic presence
is via Alaska, much smaller than that of Canada and Russia. If there is a threat, it is against Russia and Canada, not the US.
"a flood in Bangladesh
A teaching occasion from the Dutch whose country has many parts below sea level? Yes.
"contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure". Not a military problem. If your enemy is beset by disease and infrastructure damage, just sit back. To paraphrase general Patton, you win by letting the other poor bastard die.
"potential humanitarian responses.
"Extremists groups move to take advantage of these situations
Example: in the 1980's someone asked the Cuban Ambassador to the UN why Fidel Castro never sent agents to Haiti, only 100 miles away. Fidel had soldiers and agents in Africa, Central and South America, Grenada, etc...
Answer: "We do not want to inherit the problems of Haiti."
It is amazing so many conservatives on this site who likely do not even read the newspaper and I would bet have never taken a science course are in position to tell climate scientists that their entire field is a hoax and to tell the military what our real strategic threats are and are not. It is what Fox News teaches them- the less you know the more you know as long as you believe it strongly and shout to the heavens you are right!
Wow, now conservatives are arguing the U.S. is not the world nanny when before they insisted on bringing in the military when someone sneezed in another country. The contradictions are amzing!
I am a Libertarian. Like Ron Paul, I do not see the US as the World Nanny.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is not pollution and Global Warming has nothing to do with pollution.
The average person has been misled and is confused about what the current Global Warming debate is about,
greenhouse gases. None of which has anything to do with air pollution.
People are confusing Smog, Carbon Monoxide (CO) and the pollutants in car exhaust with the life supporting,
essential trace gas in our atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide (CO2).
Pollution is already regulated under the Clean Air Act and regulating Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
will do absolutely nothing to make the air you breath “cleaner”. Regulating Carbon Dioxide (CO2) through either
‘Carbon Taxes’ or ‘Cap and Trade’ policies will simply make energy (electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, propane, heating oil ect…)
much more expensive and severely cripple the economy.
You are the one who has been misled...
First of all, the United States Environmental Protection Agency has found that carbon dioxide IS a pollutant.
You make one or two points that are true, but your overall argument is totally bunk. So much so, that de-bunking it is unnecessary.
The EPA has already said they will regulate co2 as a pollutant. In fact, the Supreme Court said they were neglecting their duties if they did not label it as a polutant and regulate it. It is, of course, Romeo who is woefully misinformed as he watches his steady diet of Fox News. Of course, he does not care. He will make the same misleading post another hundred times!
The liberals are intellectually and morally corrupt by embracing the 2 threats mentioned in
Eisenhower's farewell speech in Jan 17, 1961:
"But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only."
Military Industrial Complex:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."
Scientific
"...a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to
the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-
technological elite."
The Pentagon (the Military Industrial Complex) is partnering with the CACA (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alteration) advocates, the scientific
CACA (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alteration).
I guess Eisenhower, WWII hero, was a liberal!
The liberals are not good enough to shine Eisenhower's boots.
Yet Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex.
Pretty ironic considering that the military is the largest single consumer of fossil fuels in the world.
Even more ironic is that conservatives are huge climate change deniers and military supporters!
Clearly, conservatives would be quite vocal if they truly believed the military were wasting its resources!
NASA has corrected its US temperature records, the hottest year on record is no longer 1998, but 1934.
Five of the ten hottest years since 1880 were between 1920 and 1940 " and the 15 hottest years since 1880 are spread across seven decades.
This suggests natural variation, not a warming trend. Plant and insect remains found at the base of Greenland"s ice sheet indicate that,
just 400,000 years ago, the island was blanketed in forests and basking in temperatures perhaps 27 degrees F warmer than today.
Newsweek said climate holocaust "deniers" had received $19 million from industry, to subvert the "consensus"
it claims exists about global warming. It made no mention of the $50 BILLION that alarmists and other beneficiaries have received since 1990
from governments, foundations and corporations (including Exxon,Big Banks,GE)
No, the warmest year on record for the united States was 1934 and not for the entire world. As usual, you are woefully misinformed. According to NASA, the year 2005 was the warmest on instrumental record. The ten warmest years all occur within the 12-year period 1997-2008.
When talking with deniers. 99% of the time is spent correcting your misinformation and lies. Most people would reconsider their ideas when repeatedly corrected, but not deniers who are much like the "birthers" in their mentality!
http://dat
Those of you who would like to read about NASA GISS's temperature measurements without hacking through a jumble of insults-"your misinformation and lies"- may wish to go to the following article. It comments on the GISS temperature measurements related above.
http://ice
The post is located on the IceCap website. http://ice
Mention of IceCap sometimes provokes a shriek of name-calling and insults. You know...kin
And the alarmists are quite myopic.
"on instrumental record." meaning going back to only 30 years.
Previously, and take any global region you want, there has been hotter temperatures in the past, say, 200 years.
Besides, why don't you occasionally address what the article says instead of repeating the same spam. It again is indicative of denier mentality!
As many studies that come out that tell us about the real dangers of warming, the denial machine cranks up louder than ever. So many of the uneducated follow the denial machine and Fox News instead of real science. It is really sad and makes America seem like a backwater!
No one denies the climate is changing. It's been doing that for billions of years. What the debate is about is effect man has had on the environment and the climate. So far many more scientists claim that the change is natural not man caused. From a statistical standpoint all they have been able to show is a correlation between mankinds activites and cliamte change using data at best over 1-2 thousand years, hardly significant in earth timen and as my old research professor once said correlation is not causation. That will only be shown with decades more study. In the meantime I refuse to enrich the hypocrit AlGore by spending money at companies he starts or invests in. The man just feeds the panic by claiming the sky is falling.
Man, you are just repeating the standard denial lines. Sure the climate has changed in the past and that is why the present is called anthropogenic (man-made) climate change. The things you conservatives believe just astounds me. You really think climate scientists are not aware of such simplicities.
"So far many more scientists claim that the change is natural not man caused."
You could not be further from the truth. Unfortunately, it would be a clear waste of time to discuss this any more with someone who is either 1) blinded or 2) a conscious liar.
the east river is a backwater!
I swim there all the time and that is why I have scales!
only a vegan world will solve this, green energy is too slow.
A three-day "war games" conference based on climate change was held in late July or early August 2008, and was reported on then. Admittedly it involved more scientists than military people, but the fact remains that it occurred a year ago. This topic also was covered in the Pentagon's 2008 annual security assessment. Why repeat it now?
Well, not all of us saw the coverage then. I am grateful to have this information now.
Using the military threat to push the flawed climate change bill is another way to avoid the fact that the upcoming U.S. Senate cap and trade is based on politics, not science. Here's the real deal, not astroturf:
* Climate SOS Tours to "Kill The Bill"
* "Worse Than Nothing is Not Good Enough"
Climate SOS, a grassroots network of environmentalists, scientists, and
social justice activists, is on a nationwide car-free tour to
defeat the proposed Senate cap and trade bill and to demand
that any new legislation be grounded in science instead of politics.
http://www
The Climate SOS Heartland Tour met with Conrad and Dorgan staffers yesterday in North Dakota, and will meet with Bayh and Lugar's staff tomorrow in Indiana, then on to Arkansas, and Ohio. Climate SOS organizer Duff Badgley, traveling exclusively by bus and train, will bring the message: "Kill the Bill—Worse Than Nothing is Not Good Enough!"
Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen has personally endorsed the Climate SOS campaign.
According to Hansen, if the senate climate bill is based upon the house-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), it will be "worse for the environment than doing nothing."
Climate SOS maintains that cap-and-trade will be ineffective in forestalling climate change, and supports EPA authority over carbon dioxide. Climate SOS says social justice concerns must be central to any climate legislation, and incineration technologies not be called “renewable
Contact: Duff climatesos
Climate change does not exist....
the Army's lap dog FOX NEWS told me so......
.......If the Army wants us to believe that they need money to play climate change war games, then they shall have to prove that climate change is real.
We all know that global warming is a big liberal lie.... Fox News told us so.......s
.......My god.... I think my brain just exploded. What's next? Prius "little abrahams" tanks with Greenpeace stickers..
The Army is preparing.
"Why The Military Is Worried About Climate Change"
Becaused they were ordered to be so. They follow orders.
It is not like this is new news, why does this deserve a new post?
The Military. Feh. What a bunch of DFHs.
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