U.S. National Security

Can You Hear It?

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graphic: I Heart Climate Scientists
graphic: I Heart Climate Scientists

The climate alarm is sounding more loudly than ever in these early days of 2013. Climate change, we are finding out, isn’t something that only our children and grandchildren and the global poor will wrestle with. We are staring it in the face right now where ever we live on this planet. Here in North America. Hurricane Sandy and the prolonged drought in the U.S. Midwest are a few of the close-to-home wake-up calls. We, and our children and grandchildren, are on a collision course with climate disaster. A new report, The National Climate Assessment, prepared for the U.S. Congress on the effect of climate change on that nation spells this out very clearly, as reported in the New York Times this week:

“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” the draft document says. “Americans are noticing changes all around them.

“Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.”

The report cites stronger scientific evidence—developed since the last report of this type was published in 2009—that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary cause of these changes. It warns that if humanity fails to get a handle on emissions, the changes are likely to accelerate. And it cites numerous ways, from health problems to wildfires to extreme weather events, that climate change threatens human welfare – not in some distant land in some far-off time, but here in the United States, and soon.  Click here to read the full article.

And yet Republicans resist the science. Texas Republican Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee (!) had this to say last Friday:

I believe climate change is due to a combination of factors, including natural cycles, sun spots, and human activity. But scientists still don’t know for certain how much each of these factors contributes to the overall climate change that the Earth is experiencing.” 

David Horsey Cartoon, LA Times, Jan 15, 2013
David Horsey Cartoon, LA Times, Jan 15, 2013

David Horsey tackled this reluctance to face reality brilliantly in the LA Times yesterday, Neo-Confederates in Congress Resist a Rapidly Changing World:

Today, there are quite a few very vocal neo-Confederates who think gun rights, states rights, the protection of white American culture and elimination of “excessive” taxation on the rich are the nation’s preeminent concerns. Their anti-bellum mindset makes it impossible for them to accept scientific reality — climate change, evolution, the true age of the planet — and political reality — America is becoming a more diverse, tolerant nation that does not share their fear-driven philosophy.

Horsey ends with a ray of hope:

Change is constant but our political system always lags behind until the force of change is too great to resist. The fact that those who are now clinging to the past have become so rigid, desperate and shrill is a strong indication that a big leap is drawing close. We have not found our Abe or Teddy or FDR or LBJ, as yet. Barack Obama is more a manifestation of a changing America than he is the agent of a revolutionary shift. But when the shift comes, leaders will rise to the moment and history will call them great.

That is a hopeful thought at a dismal moment in our democracy.

At this crucial moment in history, those of us who recognize it’s time that we ensure that there’s enough for everyone’s need, not everyone’s greed, need to heed the call to be Idle No More. The drumbeat of Mother Earth is calling us to action.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=butVxhDmUdg]

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More links:

Major Report Warns Climate Change Could Raise Temperature By 10 Degrees

Neo-Confederates In Congress Resist a Rapidly Changing World

An Alarm In the Offing On Climate Change

The World After 9/11

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North America, in case you haven’t turned on a computer, television, or radio this past week, is remembering the terror attacks on the twin towers, and the Pentagon, ten years ago tomorrow. Gerald Kaplan wrote in yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

Of the million stories that reflect the world since that moment, here’s the one I find most revealing. As a direct result of toiling in the ruins of the twin towers, many New York firefighters, police officers and other emergency workers became seriously ill, some terminally. These “first responders” have been lauded to the hills for their heroism, often in the most cringe-worthy manner by craven political opportunists. Saints, they were, saints, my dears, and we’ll never ever forget their sacrifices.

Late last year, the American government proposed a bill to provide funding to aid these damaged saints. A no-brainer, eh? Not in post-9/11 America. In fact the Republican members of Congress united to oppose such funding unless the tax cuts George Bush had gifted to the top 2 per cent of Americans were extended. Only when they were shamed publicly by Jon Stewart did the Republicans finally relent. But fear not. They of course won those continuing gifts to the filthy rich when President Barack Obama caved on raising America’s credit limit.

Writ small, this is the history of the post-9/11 world in the United States, in Canada, in Britain, and wherever else business interests and conservative politicians have been able to have their way with us – us being the vast majority of the world’s population.

 Naomi Klein’s revelatory book Shock Doctrine, Kaplan goes on, is an accurate description of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate much of the world through the exploitation of people and destabilized countries. He concludes that:

Osama bin Laden inflicted a terrible crime on the American people. America’s elites and their allies have done the rest.

Photo: used under Creative Commons License

More links:

Naomi Klein: Katrina, 9/11, and Disaster Capitalism

Climate Change and National Security – American Defense Officials Speak Out

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Climate Change will have profound implications for the security of every nation. Experienced military experts have come to some conclusions on what’s coming. The defense experts on this video include General Gordon Sulllivan, Former US Army Chief of Staff, Rear Admiral David Titley, Oceanographer and Navigator of the US Navy, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, and James Woolsey, Former CIA director.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqBURjOdOG8]

This video comes from Peter Sinclair and “Climate Crock of the Week“.

I am away this week on a low-carbon canoe trip in Woodland Caribou Provincial Park. Enjoy the video!

“We’re Not Doomed, We’re Just In Big Trouble” – Gwynne Dyer On Global Instability And Climate Change

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“Recent scientific evidence has…given us a picture of the physical impacts on our world that we can expect as our climate changes. And those impacts go far beyond the environmental. Their consequences reach to the very heart of the security agenda.”

Margaret Beckett, former British foreign secretary

This is the quote that opens Gwynne Dyer’s book, Climate Wars. Mr Dyer is a London-based independent Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and military historian. In 2010 he received the Order of Canada. His website summarizes his career this way:

Born in Newfoundland, he received degrees from Canadian, American and British universities, finishing with a Ph.D. in Military and Middle Eastern History from the University of London. He served in three navies and held academic appointments at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Oxford University before launching his twice-weekly column on international affairs, which is published by over 175 papers in some 45 countries.
His first television series, the 7-part documentary ‘War’, was aired in 45 countries in the mid-80s. One episode, ‘The Profession of Arms’, was nominated for an Academy Award.  His more recent television work includes the 1994 series ‘The Human Race’, and ‘Protection Force’, a three-part series on peacekeepers in Bosnia, both of which won Gemini awards.  His award-winning radio documentaries include ‘The Gorbachev Revolution’, a seven-part series based on Dyer’s experiences in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in 1987-90, and ‘Millenium’, a six-hour series on the emerging global culture.

So, what does Climate Wars have to say about the challenges the world faces in the coming decades, thanks to the grossly inadequate response of most governments to the threat that it poses? Some of the expected consequences of runaway climate change in the decades ahead are dwindling resources, massive population shifts, natural disasters, spreading epidemics, drought, rising sea levels, plummeting agricultural yields, devastated economies, and political extremism. Any one of these could tip the world towards conflict. Mr. Dyer points out that the military forces of both the United States and Britain have taken this threat seriously for years, although under George W. Bush’s presidency,  it was dangerous to one’s career to be seen treating climate change as a real and serious phenomenon. Despite that, the Pentagon hired the CNA Corporation to study the geopolitics of climate change. The resulting report, produced by the CNA Corporation in collaboration with eleven retired three- and four-star generals, was issued in April 2007 and is titled National Security and Climate. In that report, General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander-in-chief, U.S. Central Command, wrote:

You already have great tension over water [in the Middle East]. These are cultures often built around a single source of water. So any stresses on the rivers and aquifers can be a source of conflict. If you consider land loss, the Nile Delta region is the most fertile ground in Egypt. Any losses there [from a storm surge] could cause a real problem, again because the region is so fragile.

We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll. There is no way out of this that does not have real costs attached to it.

For more of Gwynne Dyer on climate change, check out these videos or go to CBC’s website to listen to Climate Wars.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaFphYKT_I0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UvHfsdZQNE]

U.S. Military: Climate Change Is A Threat Multiplier

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Here is another video from the Climate Change And Global Security symposium held last week at the Museum of Natural History. A group of academic and military experts representing both the U.S. and Britain gathered to examine the reasons why any discussion about global warming should include a broader look at the implications for long-term global security.

In this clip, Dennis V. McGinn, retired Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy and member of the Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board, discusses how climate change is a global threat multiplier, and its destabilizing impact on societies around the world:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBPL45C7T7I&feature=player_embedded]

More links:

To listen to the podcast of “Climate Change and Global Security” click here

National Security and the Threat of Climate Change

Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security

Navigating Climate Change: An Agenda for U.S.-Chinese Cooperation , a report by the EastWest Institute

American Military On Climate Change: If We Wait for 100% Certainty, Something Bad Is Going To Happen

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Last week, a group of academic and military experts representing both the U.S. and Britain gathered at a symposium at the Museum of Natural History. The symposium, Climate Change And Global Security, examined the reasons why any discussion about global warming should include a broader look at the implications for long-term global security. The moderator, Andrew Nagorski of the EastWest Institute, stated:

“What often does not come across in the discussions of climate change…is that the militaries of the U.S., the U.K., and other countries have for a long time operated on the assumption that climate change is something that you have to deal with. Whatever the causes, the consequences [of climate change], you have to factor it into your planning.”

Dennis V. McGinn, retired Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy and member of the Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board, does a good job of summing up how climate change poses a national security threat, and how it could destabilize societies around the world:

“From a military and national security expertise perspective we question ourselves, what are we doing taking about climate science, we’re collectively 400 years of time in uniform at peace and at war. Our chairman of the military advisory board General Gordon Sullivan, former Chief of Staff of the Army put it best. He said we never have 100 % certainty. If you wait for 100% certainty on the battlefield, something bad is going to happen. We never have it. So, from that conclusion about how we should approach this from a risk management proposition, what can we do to prevent, to mitigate what we can’t prevent and to adapt what we can neither prevent or mitigate, the effects of climate change. That is the challenge for us across the globe. Certainly, as a global leader that the US is we bear a special responsibility for rising to meet that challenge and to turn it into the opportunity that can make us more secure nationally and internationally and more prosperous in the future.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q2vnTuAbtw&feature=player_embedded]

Here is another video of the retired Vice Admiral speaking at a “Re-energize America” town hall meeting on the impact of America’s oil dependence on the national and economic security of the country.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPFIBm6dQC8]

If the British, U.S., and other militaries are taking the threat of climate change seriously, isn’t it time our politicians did, too?

More links:

In Canada, remind our politicians to support Bill C311, The Climate Accountability Act

To listen to the podcast of “Climate Change and Global Security” click here

National Security and the Threat of Climate Change

Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security

Navigating Climate Change: An Agenda for U.S.-Chinese Cooperation , a report by the EastWest Institute

American Veterans Raise Alarm re: Oil Dependence and National Security

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From VoteVets.org, “The Voice of America’s 21st Century Patriots”, the message that it’s time to decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil, and switch to clean energy sources:

Over 11,000 Guardsmen have been sent to clean up an oil company’s mess, when they could be protecting America. Just another reason we need clean energy reform.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWffhbEn60]

For more information, go to VoteVet.org.

Unprecedented April Rain in Arctic, Big Oil’s Big Mess in Ocean, & Military Leaders Say Climate Change A National Security Issue

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From CBC News, unprecedented rain in the High Arctic this past week:

Spring showers are next to non-existent in the High Arctic, so Environment Canada’s senior climatologist says he’s baffled to hear that it rained near the North Pole this week.

A group of British scientists working off Ellef Ringnes Island, near the North Pole, reported being hit with a three-minute rain shower over the weekend. The group reported the rain on Tuesday.

Rain in the High Arctic in April is nothing short of bizarre, said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada.

“My business is weird, wild and wacky weather, and this is up there among fish falling from the sky or Niagara Falls running dry,” Phillips told CBC News in an interview that aired Thursday. Click here to read full story on CBC.ca.

In a related story, Accuweather.com reports a dramatic flip from severe, even record-setting, cold to unusual warmth has happened over that part of western Asia centered upon the west of Siberian Russia.

From Huffington Post, news that BP aggressively fought new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling — which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry:

As families mourn the 11 workers thrown overboard in the worst oil rig disaster in decades and as the resulting spill continues to spread through the Gulf of Mexico, new questions are being raised about the training of the drill operators and about the oil company’s commitment to safety.

Deepwater Horizon, the giant technically-advanced rig which exploded on April 20 and sank two days later, is leaking an estimated 42,000 gallons per day through a pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. The spill has spread across 1,800 square miles — an area larger than Rhode Island — according to satellite images, oozing its way toward the Louisiana coast and posing a threat to wildlife, including a sperm whale spotted in the oil sheen.

The massive $600 million rig, which holds the record for boring the deepest oil and gas well in the world — at 35,050 feet – had passed three recent federal inspections, the most recent on April 1, since it moved to its current location in January. The cause of the explosion has not been determined.

The article goes on to say that the Oil Industry has been lobbying vigorously against newer, more stringent safety rules, writing over 100 letters to object to them, including a PowerPoint presentation that asked, in bold letters:

“What Do HURRICANES and New Rules Have in Common?” against a backdrop of hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico. On the next page, the answer appears: “Both are disruptive to Operations And are costly to Recover From”.

Click here to read the full story on The Huffington Post.

And, via Climate Progress, news that senior American military leaders have publicly announced their support for the U.S. climate bill currently making its torturous and uncertain way to becoming law:

Today an unprecedented 33 retired US military generals and admirals announced that they support comprehensive climate and energy legislation in a letter to Senators Reid and McConnell as well as a full page ad (click to enlarge).  The news release points out:

It was the largest such announcement of support ever, reflecting the consensus of the national security community that climate change and oil dependence post a threat to American security.

To read the full story on Climate Progress, including the text of the letter the admirals and generals sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, click here.