IF CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX, WHY IS THE MILITARY PLANNING FOR IT?

Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security
August 9, 2009 (NY Times)

SUMMARY
While some U.S. civilian conservatives believe the proposition of climate change-induced extreme weather events and resulting human crises are the product of Al Gore’s imagination, the U.S. military has begun doing intelligence studies and running war game-like exercises that demonstrate they believe strategic security challenges second to climate change are a very real possibility.

The U.S. military is making plans for action in respons to such climate change-created emergencies.

The military sees in global climate change the prospect of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics that topple governments, drive terrorist activity and/or destabilize entire regions.

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In December 2008, a National Defense University exercise modeled a huge flood in Bangladesh. It began with hundreds of thousands of refugees moving into India and ended with religious war, raging disease contagion and infrastructure breakdown.

Intelligence analysts believe vulnerable regions like sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia could in the next 2 to 3 decades experience food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding. American humanitarian relief or a military response may be necessary.

The military’s thinking and planning reflects the implications of many recent scientific studies that have suggested climate change is worsening rapidly and threatening to reach a tipping point. (See NEWEST SCIENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE) The military sees the potential for a series of global environmental, social, political and even military crises that could follow from the worst consequences of climate change.

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2008 Department of Defense (DoD) budget authorizations from then-Senator John Warner (R-Virg) and then-Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) pushed the Pentagon to begin thinking about the security implications of climate change. It began looking at Navy and Air Force weather programs and research from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It began building on findings about the energy and national security nexus that had emerged from years of DoD and State Department studies.

The result was new, long-term planning documents that included climate change considerations. (See OUR CHANGING PLANET; The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) for Fiscal Year 2009) The Pentagon’s February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review will have a section on climate change, as will the State Department’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.

The National Intelligence Council’s 2008 (and first) assessment of the national security implications of climate change warned of storms, droughts and food shortages that will create emergencies and have significant worldwide geopolitical impacts, adding to poverty, environmental harm and the weakening of governments. (See The Impact of Climate Change to 2030)

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In response, the intelligence community is preparing climate change impact reports on strategically significant individual countries (like China and India), a study of alternative fuels and an assessment of how pivotal major power relations could be affected.

The military has experience with impacts. In 1992, Homestead Air Force Base in Florida was “essentially destroyed” by Hurricane Andrew. Pensacola Naval Air Station was “badly damaged” by 2004’s Hurricane Ivan. The Pentagon is studying ways to protect major naval bases from future storms and sea level rises. Also vulnerable is Diego Garcia, the Indian Ocean atoll only a few feet above sea level and the crucial “logistics hub” for U.S. and UK Middle East operations.

When Congress reconvenes in September, the Senate will face a choice of whether to take on the burden of making profound changes in the way the U.S. uses energy. Military planning seems to suggest bold action is warranted.

Leading Democrats and members of the Obama White House are beginning to weave the national security and climate issues together as part of their support for Senate energy and climate legislation.

It is no coincidence that Senator John Kerry (D-Mass), powerful Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, is co-authoring the Senate climate and energy legislation with Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif), Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Long a major factor on Senator Boxer’s agenda, the climate change matter became a natural objective for Senator Kerry as the need to stress its importance as a national security matter grew more urgent.

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COMMENTARY
Amanda J. Dory, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, who has been in senior Pentagon positions since the Clinton administration, describes the change in DoD thinking in the last year as a “sea change.”

The military has not been unaware of climate change but Obama administration leadership has pushed the issue. The military’s response, however, is another indication that the mainstream discussion about climate change is making the shift climate change activists have long feared the most: It is moving from how to mitigate to how to adapt.

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The military, of course, is charged with making such adaptive preparations and, therefore, is only a canary in the coal mine. But the military’s preparations have broad implications and far-reaching influence.

Fortunately, the military has also become highly pro-active in moving to New Energy and Energy Efficiency. (See GETTING MILITARY ABOUT NEW ENERGY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY) This suggests that even if it is necessary to start thinking about adaptation, there might still be a chance to mitigate the worst impacts.

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As the Senate takes up energy and climate legislation, the filibuster rule preventing passage without a supermajority of 60 votes could make it possible for a recalcitrant minority of climate change deniers to block action. Knowing their thinking is not in line with military planning could sway some in this minority.

Actions likely to be proposed by the Senate legislation include (1) the first-ever U.S. Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring regulated utilities to obtain 15% of their power from New Energy sources by 2020, (2) the first-ever hard cap on total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs), bringing them to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, (3) the first-ever U.S. mandatory emissions trading system to make meeting the caps an equitable business proposition, and (4) a long list of new Energy Efficiency standards and requirements that could on their own more than meet the targeted emissions cuts.

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Senators Kerry and Boxer are actively negotiating with as many as 30 undecided Senators on the issue. Kerry says many are from coal dependent and manufacturing states and from the South and Southeast. Because electricity tends to be cheapest and dirtiest in those kinds of places, the impacts of the climate and energy bill will be the most noticeable and potentially burdensome there.

In his negotiations with undecided Senators from such places, which also have strong faith communities, Senator Kerry frequently mentions the drought that led to the conflict, starvation and genocide in Darfur, a major concern of many in the faith communities.

Retired Marine General and former head of U.S. military Central Command Anthony Zinni recently pointed something out in a report that could help Senator Kerry sway Senate votes. It is also something the President, with his unique speechmaking gift, should take to the public when it is time to move from the health insurance issue to the energy and climate bill.

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One of the biggest objections to the cap&trade portion of the legislation designed to cut U.S. GhGs 17% by 2020 and put the country on track to cut GhGs 83% by 2050 is the cost. Although Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports have all found the cost through 2020 will be about the same as 1 postage stamp a day, conservatives and the public continue to believe overblown, exaggerated reports of the costs.

General Zinni pointed out that the public is going to pay for GhGs, one way or another. It will pay a postage stamp a day to transition to a New Energy economy that will cut GhGs, create a new and enduring economic boom based on innovation and real production and lead the world to an international New Energy economy. Or it will pay for a century of chaos, upheaval, terror and economic turmoil that will require enormous investments in defense and relief. Nobody needs to take Al Gore’s word for it or NewEnergyNews’ word for it. Just ask the Pentagon.

With the first choice, the price is manageable. With the second choice, the nation will reap the whirlwind and, in the end, pay much more than a postage stamp a day to get to the same international New Energy economy.

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QUOTES
- Amanda J. Dory, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, working with a Pentagon group to incorporate climate change into national security strategy planning: “It gets real complicated real quickly [but]…These issues now have to be included and wrestled with…”
- Senator Kerry (D-Mass), Chair, Foreign Relations Committee: “I’ve been making this argument for a number of years…but it has not been a focus because a lot of people had not connected the dots.”

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- Senator Kerry, referring to the ongoing conflict and genocide in Sudan: “That is going to be repeated many times over and on a much larger scale…”
- Peter Ogden, chief of staff to top State Department climate negotiator Todd Stern: “The sense that climate change poses security and geopolitical challenges is central to the thinking of the State Department and the climate office…”
- National Intelligence Council 2008 (and first) assessment of the national security implications of climate change: “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,”