Growing conflicts over water and food, refugees fleeing storm-battered regions, and other impacts of climate change-related events worldwide threaten our nation's security. They also put our soldiers in harm's way, just as transporting fuels in war-torn regions has led to the injury or death of hundreds of soldiers each year. These are just a few of the reasons the U.S. must jumpstart its transition to a safer, renewable energy economy.
As retired general officers with more than 65 years of combined service, we believe President Obama must lead efforts to tackle runaway climate change. The Department of Defense and many current and former military leaders have warned climate change and its effects will increase economic and political instability worldwide. It will also create hardships and conflicts that threaten our nation's security. These conflicts will result in preventable deaths of many U.S. soldiers and civilians. We proudly join him in combatting this threat by hosting a solutions-focused climate summit, followed by action-focused planning meetings in U.S. communities nationwide.
The stress will be greatest on those who have dedicated their lives to preserving and protecting freedom and U.S. interests worldwide. The first-ever climate summit and satellite meetings will identify pragmatic solutions to end the political paralysis and so-called scientific "debate" that have prevented action to slow climate change thus far.
These events will give our Armed Forces colleagues, faith and labor group leaders, farmers' unions, insurance and other industry executives an opportunity to join our Commander-in-Chief in implementing proven solutions to this crisis.
The goal is to put President Obama's clear inaugural message about climate change into action. The United States must invest more in its physical infrastructure to become more resilient to climate impacts like extreme weather, while quickly reducing our carbon emissions and shifting to safer, renewable energy. These steps will go a long way toward strengthening our national security at home and abroad.
Our military is the largest institutional consumer of fuel in the world. Procuring, transporting and protecting that fuel jeopardizes thousands of servicemen and women, as well as civilians: "A 2009 study by the Army Environmental Policy Institute reported that between 2003 and 2007, more than 3,000 U.S. troop and contractor deaths or injuries were attributable to enemy attacks on fuel supply convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan." A June 2012 Congressional Research Service report concluded that even as the DoD slightly reduced its use of oil, petroleum costs ballooned roughly 380 percent from 2005 ($4.5 billion) to 2011 ($17.3 billion). As Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said during a 2012 budget hearing: "We would be irresponsible if we did not reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
Moreover, many of America's military bases at home and abroad face substantial risks from both rising sea levels and increasingly severe, frequent storms. While the military has already begun a robust climate risk management plan and program, military bases are still not safe from extreme weather damage. A single hurricane, flood, tornado or earthquake could severely damage essential bases, and significant national defense systems.
By investing in biofuels, as well as using more solar and renewable power, U.S. military leaders are moving in the right direction. But we need to work together on more aggressive, widespread and faster action by many groups nationwide. Beating climate change means uniting individuals and institutions from the top and bottom, left and right, military and civil societies. We've done it before, and the president's Climate Summit, linked to regional meetings held by cities, businesses, religious and other organizations, will allow us to work together again toward a shared goal -- protecting ourselves from the current and future impacts of climate change.
Lt. Gen. Norm Seip retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2009, after 35 years of active duty service. He now consults for non-profits on climate and energy security issues.
Retired Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson is a 31-year Army veteran, who served as chief of logistics for multinational forces in Iraq from 2006-2007. He is now chief marketing officer for Relyant in Knoxville, TN.
Just so we are clear on the future of our adaptation for climate change. The very last drop of fuel will be appropriated by the military for 'national security'. The last spark of electricity will be used for a military intelligence computer. The last drops of water will be suctioned off for the use of troops and the last of the food will supply some army somewhere. We will follow the dictates of our evolution and only act on our own survival, in our own interests.
Or will we somehow come to a realization that we are dependent upon one another? Will we come together to support one another, feed one another, care for one another, without regard to differences of race, wealth, or religion? Will we awake some morning in the not-too-distant future and realize that we, ourselves, are the destroyers we so fear? Will we somehow teach our children that the key to survival of us all, is to sustain each and our environment, which nourishes and provides the basis for all life?
Yeah, I didn't think so, either.
not holding my breath either.
Many of these investors, described as the “new water barons” in Jo-Shing Yang’s article ”Profiting from Your Thirst as Global Elite Rush to Control Water Worldwide,” are the same ones who have profited from speculating on agricultural contracts and contributing to the food crisis of the past few years. The food crisis and recent droughts have confirmed that controlling the source of food—the land and the water that flows under or by it—are equally or even more important.
A closer look at the land-related investments in Africa, for example, show that land grabbing is not simply an investment, but also an attempt to capture the water underneath. At the recent annual Global AgInvesting Conference (with well over 370 participants), the asset management groups and global farm businesses showcased their plans, including purchases of vast tracts of lands in varying locations around the globe. With tools such as water maps, such investors are further advantaged. The global rush for land grabbing, as well as the resistance to it, shows that all stake-holders—pension funds, Wall Street or nation-states on the one hand or the people who currently use these lands and waters, and their advocates on the other—are well aware of the life-and-death nature of land (and water) grabbing, especially in the case of developing countries.
We will add that to the EADS turboprop transporters as well- for superior performance, efficiency).
Even better, GFR (gravit field retransformatin- will cut the environmental damage of rocket launches- asas an EADS - GFR based Euroshuttle will carry satellite loads and space lab crews up without any rockets at all, and brake before re-entering the atmosphere. Already cracked boys.
Oh, we can always add additional special "graphene coats"- to the Eurofighter- giving it not only anti-radar capacities, but which act as invisility cloaks.) And in critical situations, it can turn off the jet engines, and fly exclusively cryogenic ion thruster to confuse heat seaking and radar guided missiles- ultimate stealth from EADS. And friendly to the environment. "European Strategic Sustainability" is a bit more advanced than the U.S. there. Did it on the cheap in comparison to the trillion dollar boondoggles the U.S. MIC is famous for.
Let´s go through the numbers. The F35 was developed because a Eurofighter outperformed the F 22 in simulated dogfights over Scotland, the English Channel and Belgium. (reality boys.) The Pentagon got paranoid about that, and launched the cost overrun F 35- 1.5 trillion boondoggle.
Now, thanks to a successful upgrade of the iberian Bullular Model of the atom to Q.E.D.- as used by St. Ramon Lull, Spinoza, Leibniz, Swedenborg, and Tesslas favourite Jesuit- we were able to crack quantum gravity- the relationship between atomic level positrons and electrons and gravity. The solution is inherent to the central problem in the upgrade - a quantum EPR effect - solved by assigning cryogenic properties to co-product Beta particles. That leads to a special upgrade of the Eurofighter which saves aviation fuel.
Brown water as fuel can also be used a s fuel supplement on diesel systems already running partially aqueous as the combustive hho gas goes into the air intake. Even the South Africans are ahead in the game. (more so than you think.)
The fact is that the population will keep going until the damage to the environment tips so far as to kill billions upon billions of us, if not all. Whole populations will die out, and millions upon millions will migrate and haves/versus have-nots will fight and many developed societies will collapse under the strain. Then eventually a much smaller population will be left in the mess that is all that remains of a once friendly ecosystem to pick up the pieces."
Scientific American, Population and Sustainability, 2011
here's to hoping those who are left to contend with the damage heed the lessons regarding the damage that capitalism wreaked upon this earth.