Another bastion of liberalism, the U.S. military swears allegiance to the crazy climate change myth.
Commenting on a report published by the CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board -- a leading government-funded military research organization -- that finds that the "accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict," Pentagon officials said the report would affect military policy, according to the New York Times:
"The department certainly agrees that climate change is having an impact on national security, whether by increasing global instability, by opening the Arctic or by increasing sea level and storm surge near our coastal installations," John Conger, the Pentagon's deputy under secretary of defense for installations and environment, said in a statement. "We are actively integrating climate considerations across the full spectrum of our activities to ensure a ready and resilient force."
Some of the climate change-induced factors that could impact national security are, according to the review of the report by the Times:
...climate change-induced drought in the Middle East and Africa is leading to conflicts over food and water and escalating longstanding regional and ethnic tensions into violent clashes...rising sea levels are putting people and food supplies in vulnerable coastal regions like eastern India, Bangladesh and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam at risk and could lead to a new wave of refugees.
In addition...an increase in catastrophic weather events around the world will create more demand for American troops, even as flooding and extreme weather events at home could damage naval ports and military bases.
According to the Times, "in March, the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, the agency's main public document describing the current doctrine of the United States military, drew a direct link between the effects of global warming -- like rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns -- and terrorism."
"These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad, such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions -- conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence," the review said.
Referring to the composition of the Military Advisory Board that examined the security implications of climate change in 2007 and which updated its findings in 2014, the report points out:
When it comes to thinking through long-term global challenges, none are more qualified than our most senior military leaders. Not only do they have decades of experience managing risk and responding to conflict on the battlefield, but they are also experts in geopolitical analysis and long range strategic planning.
However, Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and "a vocal skeptic of the established science that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming," has a different view of those liberal, tree-hugging retired military officers. The Times:
"There is no one in more pursuit of publicity than a retired military officer," he said of the report's authors. "I look back wistfully at the days of the Cold War. Now you have people who are mentally imbalanced, with the ability to deploy a nuclear weapon. For anyone to say that any type of global warming is anywhere close to the threat that we have with crazy people running around with nuclear weapons, it shows how desperate they are to get the public to buy this."
To this, Rear Adm. David Titley, a co-author of the report and a meteorologist who is retired from the Navy, said political opposition would not extinguish what he called the indisputable data in the report, according to the Times:
"The ice doesn't care about politics or who's caucusing with whom, or Democrats or Republicans," said the admiral who now directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Pennsylvania State University.
What will come next? Marco Rubio reconsidering "a handful of decades of research"?
Read more here.
Read the full CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board report here.