This is not new. But everyone should know about it anyway. And it should be an issue in the Senate campaign, big time. In last year’s Quadrennial Defense Review, the Department of Defense notes climate change as one of the major challenges it will face:
Climate change will affect DoD in two broad ways. First, climate change will shape the operating environment, roles, and missions that we undertake. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, composed of 13 federal agencies, reported in 2009 that climate-related changes are already being observed in every region of the world, including the United States and its coastal waters. Among these physical changes are increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the oceans and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows.
Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.
While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world. In addition, extreme weather events may lead to increased demands for defense support to civil authorities for humanitarian assistance or disaster response both within the United States and overseas. In some nations, the military is the only institution with the capacity to respond to a large-scale natural disaster.
My emphasis throughout that quote. Yeah, you mess with people’s supply of food and water, and you might expect problems to result. Nah, doesn’t sound serious, and certainly not anything to trouble the head of our junior Senator.
seascraper says
.
stomv says
One of the major pieces of climate change work the DoD has been working on is fuel efficiency within the military. It turns out that it requires an enormous amount of fuel to bring fuel to deployed vehicles. By squeezing more energy efficiency (EE), they can cut down on the amount of fuel they transport, and the amount of fuel they need to transport the fuel, and… the number of soldiers they have to deploy in supply caravans, exposed to attack.
Are they working on EE to save the polar bears? Nawp. Will their work lessen the impact that the US armed forces have on polar bears? Yawp.
karenc says
causing mass migrations in some of the most volatile areas of the country.
At least as far back as 2003, the military has done major studies of the likely impact on national security. There was a major report that was put out in 2007 that led to his hearing – http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=bf71022c-9ca1-ab5f-e303-663fb7c33c18 (Barbara Boxer gives a very good history in her statement – almost at the beginning of this.
Subsequent hearings have been just as scary.
seascraper says
What’s the saying, to the hammer everything looks like a nail… if the military can get a few more bucks out of jumping on the bandwagon they will do it.
Charley on the MTA says
is that they considered the facts on their merits, and made recommendations based on them.
Got any backup for your pet theory?
Charley on the MTA says
Awesome. But hard to scale.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2015419818_milbiofuels26.html
OTOH, if anyone can figure out how to produce it at massive scale, it’s the military.
lady-bea-goode says
The time when voluntary measures would resolve global warming was squandered in governmental debate. The result is that global warming is beyond the scope of government rules. While fossil fuels remain a problem, the emphasis is quickly turning to population control. Former Vice President Gore took the brave, but unpopular, stand on this some time ago.
Now it is up to the military, I hope under UN control, to radically change the world so that future peoples can live in peace with the earth. Many things must be done that cannot be done by the population’s popular choice.
seascraper says
?