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TechnoratiUS Energy Use a National Security Threat: Study
WASHINGTON - US dependence on fossil fuels and a vulnerable electric grid pose a perilous threat to the country's national security, retired military officers warned Monday in a report.
The threat requires urgent action and the Defense Department should lead the way in transforming America's energy use by aggressively pursuing efficiency measures and renewable sources, said the report by CNA, a nonprofit research group.
"Our dependence on foreign oil reduces our international leverage, places our troops in dangerous global regions, funds nations and individuals who wish us harm, and weakens our economy," it said.
"The market for fossil fuels will be shaped by finite supplies and increasing demand. Continuing our heavy reliance on these fuels is a security risk," said the report titled "Powering America's Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security."
The authors, top ranked retired officers from the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, also point to the strained domestic electricity network as a possible hazard for US military bases.
"Our domestic electrical system is also a current and significant risk to our national security: many of our large military installations rely on power from a fragile electrical grid that is vulnerable to malicious attacks or interruptions caused by natural disasters," it said.
President Barack Obama's new administration needs to begin making energy and climate change goals a key element of all national security and military planning, the report said.
The report said diminishing supplies of oil combined with the impact of climate change would feed instability around the world.
"The effects of global climate change will pose serious threats to water supplies and agricultural production, leading to intense competition for essentials," said one of the officers behind the report, retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, former commander of the US Third Fleet.
"The US cannot assume that we will be untouched by these conflicts. We have to understand how these conflicts could play out, and prepare for them," he said in a statement.
Having to rely on fossil fuels has put a burden on the US military to ensure the flow of oil around the globe, and forces Washington to devote a vast amount of time and effort on oil-rich regimes, retired Air Force General Chuck Wald, former deputy chief of US European Command, said in the report.
"The problem is dependence, and by that I mean our hands are tied in many cases because we need something that others have -- we need their oil," Wald said.
But he said solving the problem was complicated and that calls for energy independence were unrealistic.
"The answer involves a sort of interdependence," Wald said. "We need a diversity of supply, for us and for everybody. We need clean fuels that are affordable and readily available, to us and to everybody."
To help lead the way to a new US energy "posture," the Defense Department should design more efficient systems to help troops overseas, understand its carbon "bootprint," pursue smart grid technology, electrify its vehicles, expand renewable energy generation at bases, and invest in low-carbon liquid fuels for the long-term, the report said.
By taking these steps, the Defense Department "could stimulate the market for new energy technologies and vehicle efficiencies," it said.
The Pentagon, acknowledging that the world's most powerful military relies heavily on access to foreign oil, says it has already launched a major strategic effort to reexamine how the military uses energy and sought to improve efficiency.
The department said in a 2008 report to Congress that it "is actively focused on initiatives to reduce energy demand, increase alternative sources of energy and ensure the energy gets to where it is needed reliably and efficiently."
The same military advisory board to CNA released a report in 2007 that described climate change as a "threat multiplier" that would aggravate security risks and conflicts over scarce resources.
16 Comments so far
Show AllAbe? or who ever is the above?
What the heck does that mean?
rtdrury May 19th, 2009 8:36 pm
rt in my town there are loads of poor uneducated people who will always shop at walmart. They go for the lowest price cheapest goods.
The attorney general in the state that chartered the corporation is undoubtably a corporate whore anyway.
I still can't get my mind around how late it is... too late... The crash is slow motion all around us. I know. I have always been an optimist my whole life. But with every piece of info that I read, good and bad, the bad seems to over shadow the good. I don't think that the positive changes that some are making are enough and not happening fast enough. We are sunk.
But I will say this. we need to keep making those changes. Because when the final blocks of our rickety economic and cultural life come crashing down so that everyone feels it... the people that did put positive, life sustaining and survival oriented practices will be ahead of the game.
Some one above said something about using high milage cars. Cars are a thing of the past. The world that will be created from this oil based economy we've had from the late 1800's is going,going, almost gone.
THe problem is that some are trying to hang on. Even an electric car is a farse and soon that will become evident. We are going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new kind of civilization...
I still can't get my mind around how late it is... too late... The crash is slow motion all around us. I know. I have always been an optimist my whole life. But with every piece of info that I read, good and bad, the bad seems to over shadow the good. I don't think that the positive changes that some are making are enough and not happening fast enough. We are sunk.
But I will say this. we need to keep making those changes. Because when the final blocks of our rickety economic and cultural life come crashing down so that everyone feels it... the people that did put positive, life sustaining and survival oriented practices will be ahead of the game.
Some one above said something about using high milage cars. Cars are a thing of the past. The world that will be created from this oil based economy we've had from the late 1800's is going,going, almost gone.
THe problem is that some are trying to hang on. Even an electric car is a farse and soon that will become evident. We are going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new kind of civilization...
Now that the retired military Generals have come out on the side of Alarmist science and say it is a National Security issue, it's pretty clear what side is on the right side. I guess it's just a matter of time before tanks start rolling over SUV's on the highway to eliminate the threat.
And BTW, I always said energy was a national security issue, and puzzled over why Bush did not use his powers to let the oil companies drill anywhere they wanted. I now know it is because there is too much oil already for their tastes, so there is no security threat. Read Thomas Gold and his book The Deep Hot Biosphere which outlines the abiotic source of oil (ie-it's not from fossile fuels and there is plenty).
Of course, restricting cheap sources of energy are a great military tool to keep other countries from developing and allow the global corporations to exploit their resources. The militaries role is to provide global security protection for global corporations and to free up markets. In globalist jargon - to force interdependence on nations, and eliminate any nation aspiring to independence by force and/or regime change.
Since those on the right are more resistant to the idea of Climate Change being mans fault, but are very much for National Security and treat the pro-war military Generals as Gods, this is a very effective strategy. Very smart. They have confirmed by skepticism.
Our greatest user of fossil fuels is our military. They use more fuel than they can steal from other countries. If they would stop their imperial plunder we would have an energy surplus. Our own military is America's greatest national security threat.
Our highways and bridges are in decay - RAISE GAS TAXES to pay for America's infastructure. Charge by the ton-mile is reasonable. Tax cutting Republicans are cutting our own throat - they are so anti-American!
We can use high mileage automobiles. Ford and GM can make them at a reasonable cost. If the CEOs balk then DRAFT them (there's a war going on) and put them to work making cars we need at private's wages.
Skip the ethanol scam - it makes more polution and uses more oil than the gas it replaces. Always has, always will and the price of food will become affordable again. Eating vegetables rather than animal flesh will save more fossil fuel than all of the above combined.
If at first we don't secede...
"Our dependence on foreign oil reduces our international leverage, places our troops in dangerous global regions, funds nations and individuals who wish us harm, and weakens our economy,"
That's a fair assessment. It isn't really about world empire, not for this one story. I'm a pacifist and I agree that we don't want to place our troops in dangerous global regions.
They can fight California wildfires. That's useful! Of course, then we'd call them firefighters.
Hmm, but how do you execute a corporation, especially since they have the rights of people? Start at the top?
There are three ways to end a corporation.
1.The attorney general in the state that chartered the corporation pulls its charter. All assets are then sold and divided amungst the shareholders.
2. In your town as we are doing in our town is to write an ordinance that clearly states that we the people of such and such town do not recognize corporations as people and that they do not have the rights of people.
3.Get everyone to not do business or buy from them or rent them their labor.
1. +3. are harder to do than 2.
Abe, how is it that the people stopping doing business with corporations is hard to do? The people are HUNGRY to do their business with OTHER PEOPLE. Not corporations. The people are hungry. So please, open your neighborhood shop today. NOW.
Get 5% of the people in your town to sign onto a compact, that they will pay a graduated fee, based on income tax income (which is hard to wiggle out of), to a common pool, and that common group will work to certify businesses (are they "fair trade" for your local area, are they green, a number of things). Then members get discounts, and members are a bit more likely to get work at these businesses too. It will be uneconomical for members to turn down the discounts. Soon it will also be uneconomical for average local businesses to not get certified.
When the big box store gains a monopoly in a town, we know that every one of its prices go up 20%. Why not pull together to break the monopoly, and force the big box to drop its prices 20% in your town, and to soak the suckers in some other town but subsidize your whole town!
Then evangelize and grow in that other town too!.
Try to include just about everyone in every town. It's moral to pull together. It's not exactly civic to loaf on the hard organizing work of all of your neighbors. Listen to everyone's situation. Are they not participating because they're broke? Can you get them around that issue?
Expand until the bad corporations are isolated and reduced to selling to a few remaining suckers. Some corporations will cave to your demands and join your certification movement. Some will heavily advertise a few really token gestures, greenwashing on a silver platter, for all the good that does. Some will pull a Chrysler, first crying to the government for billions, then getting sold off.
The Govt. has been saying energy is a matter of national security for a long time when it suited their agenda. But maybe this makes it official. There is a long history of scientists and inventors being payed off to shut up, their work bought up and never heard from again, and even being threatened, beaten and killed. But if energy is truly a matter of national security then aren't companies who suppress helpful energy technology guilty of treason? And we know what the punishment for that is. Hmm, but how do you execute a corporation, especially since they have the rights of people? Start at the top?
Start at the bottom.
Start NOW!
""The problem is dependence, and by that I mean our hands are tied in many cases because we need something that others have -- we need their oil," Wald said.
But he said solving the problem was complicated and that calls for energy independence were unrealistic."
Yeah, it's unrealistic. We need more tanks, ships, warplanes, guns, missiles, bullets, bombs, Humvees, fuel, etc. and etc. to keep us safe from crazy Mahmoud, wacky Chavez, injun Evo, those Castro devils, old Europe and other commies except the Chinese that own us. And that takes coal and oil, the oil we were chosen by God to take from those horrible Muslims that need Christianizing.
Besides, heaven forbid we have to walk more or (ghasp) ride a bicycle, or (shudder) take public transportation. Or get our hands dirty planting things to eat. Or practice ungodly birth control to keep us from consuming the world.
It's unrealistic to stop growth, to stop pollution and global warming, to not live the American dream as revealed to us by Detroit, House Beautiful, Vogue, Barron's, and the Bible.
So we can't use our remaining oil to build windmills, solar cells, dig geothermal wells, use wave-power, and other green technologies (except huge, outrageously expensive, dangerous, radwaste polluting and uninsurable nuclear power plants. They're okay).
Onward Christian soldiers. Go forth, be fruitful and multiply. God will provide.
Ah yes, the panzer divisions ground to a halt when they ran out of fuel. Our generals fear the same thing. Hence, as a matter of policy, we must continue to invade other nations to steal their oil.
On the home front, to save energy, we will gradually turn into Iraqis, with the power turned on for only a few hours per day, usually at off peak hours. Fuel will be rationed to all except those needed to promote the war effort.
Then food, then water, then clothing. Be patriotic! Support the war effort! Remember the sacrifices of our glorious Wehrmacht (oops) military! We must make sacrifices to see that they do not want.
Deja vu all over again. Different language, different names, but the tale seems, endlessly, to be repeated.
This is NEWS ????
It took a STUDY to figure this out ?????
The list of US Government policies initiated during the past forty years that imperil security is quite long.