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Pentagon to Rank Global Warming as Destabilizing Force
US defense review says military planners should factor climate change into long term strategy
"While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden on civilian institutions and militaries around the world," said a draft of the review seen by the Guardian.
A fisherman in the dried reservoir of Lam Takhong Dam, Thailand, a consequence of global warming.The Pentagon says climate change does not cause conflict but it could act as an accelerant. Photograph: Vinay Dithajohn/EPA Heatwaves and freak storms could put increasing demand on the US military to respond to humanitarian crises or natural disaster. But troops could feel the effects of climate change even more directly, the draft says.
More than 30 US bases are threatened by rising sea levels. It ordered the Pentagon to review the risks posed to installations, and to combat troops by a potential increase in severe heatwaves and fires.
The review's release coincides with a sharpening focus in the American defense establishment about global warming - even though polls last week showed the public increasingly less concerned.
The CIA late last year established a center to collect intelligence on climate change. Earlier this month, CIA officials sent emails to environmental experts in Washington seeking their views on climate change impacts around the world, and how the agency could keep tabs on what actions countries were taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The CIA has also restarted a program - scrapped by George Bush - that allowed scientists and spies to share satellite images of glaciers and Arctic sea ice.
That suggests climate change is here to stay as a topic of concern for the Pentagon.
The Pentagon, in acknowledging the threat of global warming, will now have to factor factor climate change into war game exercises and long-term security assessments of badly affected regions such as the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.
Military planners will have to factor climate change into war game exercises and long-term security assessments of badly affected regions such as the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia..
"The leadership of the Pentagon has very strongly indicated that they do consider climate change to be a national security issue," said Christine Parthemore, an analyst at the Center for A New American Security who has been studying the Pentagon's evolving views on climate change. "They are considering climate change on par with the political and economic factors as the key drivers that are shaping the world."
Awareness of climate change and its impact on threat levels and military capability had been slowly percolating through the ranks since 2008 when then Senators Hillary Clinton and John Warner pushed the Pentagon to look specifically at the impact of global warming in its next long-term review.
But the navy was already alive to the potential threat, with melting sea ice in the Arctic opening up a new security province. The changing chemistry of the oceans, because of global warming, is also playing havoc with submarine sonar, a report last year from the CNAS warned.
US soldiers and marines, meanwhile, were getting a hard lesson in the dangers of energy insecurity on the battlefield, where attacks on supply convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq inflicted heavy casualties.
"Our dependence on fuel adds significant cost and puts US soldiers and contractors at risk," said Dorothy Robyn, deputy Undersecretary of Defense for the Environment. "Energy can be a matter of life and death and we have seen dramatically in Iraq and Afghanistan the cost of heavy reliance on fossil fuels."
She told a conference call on Friday the Pentagon would seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions from non-combat operations by 34% from 2008 levels by 2020, in line with similar cuts by the rest of the federal government.
In addition to the threat of global warming, she said the Pentagon was concerned that US military bases in America were vulnerable because of their reliance on the electric grid to cyber attack and overload in case of a natural disaster.
The US air force, in response, has built up America's biggest solar battery array in Nevada, and is testing jet fighter engines on biofuels. The Marine Corps may soon start drilling its own wells to eliminate the need to truck in bottled water in response to recommendations from a task force on reducing energy use in a war zone.
But not all defense department officials have got on board, and Parthemore said she believes it could take some time to truly change the military mindset.
Parthemore writes of an exchange on a Department of Defense list-serv in December 2008 about whether global warming exists. It ends with one official writing: "This is increasingly shrill and pedantic. Moreover, it's becoming boring."
55 Comments so far
Show AllWhile many Deniers will now admit Earth is warming a little bit, they insist it's all "natural," just cyclical, and that nothing we can do will slow it down or speed it up. In other words, it's not caused by anything humans do.
Logic doesn't seem to work, as I found in trying to have a rational discussion with my comfortably-well-off sister. Her husband spent his working years on Wall Street and lives and breathes money market and capitalism.
So, it seems primarily selfish in that many of these Deniers likely have stock in dirty fossil fuel stocks.
Denial of climate change has become a new religion - one simply believes without question that anything we want to use up is just fine because there will always be more.
It is difficult to process what lies ahead, but we have to keep trying to get through to regular people so the changes that need to be made can be done before we're toast.
I'm not sure your sister and her husband really deny Global Warming. Powerful interests have taught them that YOU are what must be denied in America. You identified yourself to them by your belief in Global Warming, but the dark truth about you runs much deeper than that.
What is truth when faced with such danger as you represent? Hence, against all reason, statistic, or logic, they will double the already obscenely high National Debt, they will kill half a million Iraqis who had nothing to do with 9-11, they will buy into a housing and derivatives bubble hatched by WallStreet and gladly add trillions more to the National Debt to cover the bankster bets when these bubbles pop. No truth, no statistic, no evidence anywhere is going to derail them from fighting the dire threat to America that you pose.
These people are on a mission, my friend. Faux News has told them what they know in their gut, that they are good, reasonable, freedom-loving people. But there are bad, cancerous people out there, carrying infective memes (ideas). Faux then indentifies for them the meme's by which you will be identified. The danger is high for them, they are told, the threat imminent. Once you have identified yourself by your memes, you MUST be resisted or America is in grave, though unspecified, danger. Maybe you seek a resurgence of communism, or maybe you are secretly a muslim-lover. Even Faux News is reluctant to identify the alter you're now praying at, so dark and horrible it is. Its all they can do to identify you by your memes, memes like Global Warming, so that the converted will recognize you when you come calling. They love you, and wouldn't harm you, but why can't you recognize the deeper implications of your infection? Why won't you see the danger you pose to America, identified by your memes?
They love you and wouldn't harm you, but they love America too...
At dinner, don't casually mention anything to do with Revolution, even if it is in reference to our Founding Fathers. Very dangerous. Excellent insight regarding dangerous memes, Ubrew12.
On my job, I occasionally visit coal mines. A introductory conversation on the job with anyone in the industry will usually begin, ritualistically, with some scornful remark regarding global warming.
Also, NEVER, ask if there is a recycling bin for your pop can when in a coal mine office!
I think we should not underestimate the degree that most people will adopt views that are comparable with and preserve their livlihoods. The disturbing thing is that they could very well resort to violence if their boss lays them off and tells them to "blame those environmentalists".
I certainly see this even in government agency (MSHA) where I work. Most workers there see themselves as part of the industry. There is a hostility to even the most sensible conservation measures. Most co-workers leave their lights and computer on when leaving for the day. A recent conservation directive from the Secretary of Labor to turn computers and peripherals off at night off had to be "disguised" as mostly a security measure to prevent a backlash.
pjd412 wrote:
.....A recent conservation directive from the Secretary of Labor to turn computers and peripherals off at night off had to be "disguised" as mostly a security measure to prevent a backlash.....
Interesting, isn't it, that the decades-long body of literature from the climate research community isn't good enough for the politicians and their corporate sponsors but the PENTAGON seems to have sufficient confidence in it to "factor it in" when making policy decisions.
The magic words: National Security.
Actually, I didn't mean a backlash from politicians, I meant a backlash of complaining from the MSHA government employees!
Also, NEVER, ask if there is a recycling bin for your pop can when in a coal mine office!
Painfully funny. Too true. In California however, you would be taking work away from a prisoner! The garbage is sorted out by prisoners in many counties.
I relaize how wise Jimmy Carter was, telling us to keep our thermostats down and wear a sweater. It is said, that was what killed his chances for a second term. : ( Taking personal responsibility is the only way - I can see now. Teaching kids from the beginning, that there is never enough (water, resources) to waste, is a great start. Kids these days KNOW all the cool things that are made from recycled goods. It requires maturity and patience in dealing with social dinosaurs. I admire the humor you have retained.
"Also, NEVER, ask if there is a recycling bin for your pop can when in a coal mine office!"
What is interesting is that where I am in NC recycling is a very big BUSINESS. The counties are trying to get people to recycle more not just for the environment but for business reasons. Thousands of jobs in this state are tied to recycling. A perfect example that going green is not only good for the environment but it can also be good for business.
The only conclusion to make over the absolutely obscene amount of money the Pentagon is given every year is that its for global conquest: they (we) intend to rule the world, at least on its larger issues.
Global warming is one of those larger issues. When push comes to shove, the military will act to protect Western interests and defend them against the fury of the 'Indians' as they find, once again, that they are targeted for extermination.
Put this article in the 'well, duh' department.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when this report was being drawn up, listening to the spluttering of the Christian dominionist global warming deniers against military types who work according to verifiable facts on the ground.
Actually, there are probably no denialists in the Pentagon. The denialism you hear is purely for public propaganda consumption.
Exactly.
This is not the first time that military planners worry about changes in the environment. When reports began to surface towards the end of the 19th century that German rivers were increasingly polluted the commanders of the German cavalry begged the Kaiser to do something about it because their horses might die drinking the vile water.
Whatever their ulterior motives are, when today's military commanders worry about global warming their worries are genuine.
I am happy to see at least that the Pentagon & Osama Bin Laden are now in the mainstream. Now the whole world working together hand in hand, seeing eye to eye, we will create a new world!
Any environmental lawyers out there (!?) please respond with clarification:
If Tim DeChristopher, the Utah activist who bid on land that was being auctioned to oil interests http://www.bidder70.org/ tried to use a necessity defense (i.e., that global warming constituted a clear and present threat and he was acting in defense of that threat)--that defense was rejected by the court;
yet the threat is being acknowledged by the Pentagon...
Doesn't that model a disparity in policy and law that gives credence to DeChristopher's argument?
I know, I know--when the law supports the resistance, the law (or interpretation thereof) is changed...but I couldn't help but think of Tim upon reading this article.
Mercy. I hope someone reads this who can carry this argument further. Thanks.
MOTHER NATURE will stop the insanity of patriarchy,
organized patriarchal religion -- "Manifest Destiny" and
"Man's Dominion Over Nature" -- and Capitalism --
These are all fascist systems and suicidal --
Why does humanity fail to understand this -- and how do
we continue to fail to stop war?
Yes - these suicidal systems will take us all with them!
Btw, the Pentagon issued a similar warning to Bush in a
secret memo which is on the internet telling him that
Global Warming was a larger threat to America than
"terrorism" --!!! Imagine that!!
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Jeevee
If we all don't do everything we can inspire our lazy, too comfortable mind-bodies to end global warming, our children and grandchildren will lead horrible lives.
There are always deniers to defend their rapacious natures. We MUST do the best we can. If the nature of God is denied, there are great men of courage such as Howard Zinn to lead the way to Truth and truly righteous action. Let's all struggle to get off the ego slide.
If we all don't do everything we can inspire our lazy, too comfortable mind-bodies to end global warming, our children and grandchildren will lead horrible lives.
There are always deniers to defend their rapacious natures. We MUST do the best we can. If the nature of God is denied, there are great men of courage such as Howard Zinn to lead the way to Truth and truly righteous action. Let's all struggle to get off the ego slide.
"Pentagon to Rank Global Warming as Destabilizing Force"
Takes one to know one.
vdb;I love it!!Tony
i came here to write:
"Pentagon to rank Pentagon as destabilizing force."
You said it.
I for one can't wait to see human life on this pathetic planet extinct.
It's a fitting end to a pathetic race, humans. Greedy assassins, that's what we basically are. We never deserved a planet this beautiful.
So be it. We'll burn, drown, suffocate. Well deserving.
The universe won't even notice. In the event it does, it'll say "good riddance."
I really can't agree. 99% of all human, cat, dog, and horse children (at least) are delightful, and deserve a world to grow up in. Why not strive to give them one?
because they will grown up to be greedy, selfish, blood thirsty war mongers that's why.
You did?
Ardath, I'm sorry for the pain you feel - I feel it too.
There are good people out there, though, including most grownups. We all struggle with the overwhelming problems facing us - we aren't perfect - but that doesn't mean we're all bad. Neither are the children nor the animals nor the flora. I really believe most of us want good lives for everything that lives. We've just lost sight of that.
Hard times are here and they will get worse, but please don't give up on life yet. This is a chance for us to change and learn and grow into what we could be.
lol I haven't given up on life, my life's actually great and I have love, art & great people around me. But that doesn't erase my contempt for the human species in general.
Human history has been mostly about war, bloodshed and hate mongering. Now we're destroying the planet we live on and the air we breathe. Humanity is rotten.
"99% of all human, cat, dog, and horse children (at least) are delightful"
I completely agree with you that 99% of cats dogs and (horse children?) are delightful. But from my personal dealings the number of delightful people is MUCH, MUCHY less than 99%...
But is that true of your interactions with human *children* too, Tom? In my experience, the vast majority of human children are kind, generous, and loving. Anything bad they do is done out of ignorance or clumsiness, not intent. That's not your experience of them?
No shit. I can't wait until a fucking meteor slams into the earth and annihilates our nasty species. Evil bastards can't wait to sell off the motherless children of Haiti now. Even sicker is there is a market for motherless children. What kind of sick species is this?
Now the Pentagon can't wait to start the Arctic Circle Wars to control those resources so they declared GW a destabilizing force. Humans are a destabilizing force.
You and Ardeth get that YOU will be killed too, yes?
Unless you die from other causes first, that is?
Surely pills would be a better form of suicide than Global Destruction?
I suspect that this is just a rationalization to justify a thousandfold increase in drone aircraft production-- part of a new Global War on Warming offensive, based on a strategy of pre-emptively destroying the established International Warming Network wherever it threatens to rear its overheated head!
· Yr Obd't Servant
al Climata?
sounds like an excuse for this type of action to me, too...another article today about voting against one's interests...how'd you like to be a drone-builder by trade? will your own drone come for you, or a competitor's?
'we' may not be able to control global warming, but 'we' will certainly control the populace as they begin to react to the horrors of such...
the populace trapped between human practices that are killing the planet, and the privatized property forcing such practices, and rendering them unstoppable...
Did I miss the part where it said the pentagon is now begging obomber to do something really big and really serious about climate change? the way he refused to do at Copenhagen? If military bases are being threatened, would that alarm the president? the way the pitiful cries of the people from Maldives and other island nations did not? would he not then rush to rescue the troops? just asking
Wave... again...
This is hardly news.
Global Warming/Climate Change has been assessed by the Pentagon/US Military as a serious threat to itself for at least ten years!
Go hunt up Project Censored for all the news that didn't make it to press or airtime.
The US Military, and the Corporations that support it know that Peak Oil (and resources in general), Climate Change and other countries scrambling for a diminishing pool of resources is going to strangle the US MIlitary and end the US Imperial hegemony.
Why the hell do you think you are in Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia (and dozens of others) and making threatening noises at Iran?
What Galenwainwright said.
I compare it to Y2k, which many people now think was a hoax - it was not. While it may have been overblown by some, corporations all over the world didn't spend billions of dollars on a hoax. The fact that computer systems were fixed in time is a testament to a known catastrophe focusing minds and purse strings.
Similarly, the Pentagon is not going to prepare and issue warnings about Climate Change for no reason. They have studied human reactions to catastrophe for a long time, and are preparing. That they are preparing in a negative manner is another discussion.
It's questionable whether global warming will ever be the destabilizing force that propaganda about global warming has been.
Wow a voice of logic on this Liberal rant board
Fear is not a good thing, when you scare people into acting its never a good thing.
A voice of stupidity, you mean. What will take for you right-wing turds to accept science?
And this is not a liberal rant board, it's a leftist rant board I'd say, which is a completely different thing.
"Our dependence on fuel adds significant cost and puts US soldiers and contractors at risk," said Dorothy Robyn, deputy Undersecretary of Defense for the Environment. "Energy can be a matter of life and death and we have seen dramatically in Iraq and Afghanistan the cost of heavy reliance on fossil fuels."
But the wars aren't about oil. Yeah, correct. (I can't bear to use the R word.)
People, lets just not do anything and let the whole damn meltdown take care of itself. Those r.... wingers want armageddon and are willing to create it, much to God's concern, so why do we need to worry ourselves ill over their problems and failure to do things correctly.
Create single payer in your own state, stop nuke and coal plants, recycle more, legalize marijuana and keep the schools open, make your state a nuke free zone, vote in people who only run on public funds allotted, and participate in local government. Those big shots in WDC are going to implode on themselves. Why should we be in their fallout?
Science is nothing if not skepticism. Certainty and dogmatism properly characterize religion. When one accepts a religious "truth" the quest is over and thinking is discouraged. In science there are no final truths; the quest is forever and criticism is mandatory.
Apparently Ardath Bey has not watched Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" as regards the reality and techniques of propaganda.
Are you telling me that Chomsky thinks global warming is propaganda? Don't be ridiculous.
I'm a fan of his and have read many of his books but I don't need Chomsky to know that CO2 emissions are harming the atmosphere. It's NOT rocket science.
Great, talk about the law of unintended consequences. Push the GW agenda too much everyone will take advantage of it.
On the other hand, about the image, there's another article from 2008 saying:
"Heavy downpours increased the water level in Lam Takhong dam in Pak Thong Chai district to near its maximum holding capacity of 110 million cubic metres, said Chamlong Pinitkarn, director of the dam's water supply and maintenance"
Makes you wonder when the image was taken. Probaby right up there with the galciers disappearing by 2035.
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate.
"Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate"
WOW, TRUTH BE TOLD...
What were you thinking dear parents?
What were you thinking back then?
Did you give a rat's ass for our future?
Did you give a rat's ass for us
when, you
dumped all your poisons in water?
let your garbage spread over the land?
killed off the birds with your bug juice?
and killed all the seeds meant for man?
What were you thinking dear parents?
What were you thinking back then?
Did you give a rat's ass for our future?
Did you give a rat's ass for us
when, you
murdered those children in Iraq?
slaughtered the farmers down south?
made more nukes than you could blow up?
and put a gun in our mouth?
What were you thinking dear parents
In two thousand and ten?
Could you have made a bigger difference?
Made a difference for us back then?
Earth ranks Pentagon a destabilizing force to global climate.
What is the Pentagram's Carbon Footprint?
How many degrees warmer does the world get with each elective war or Crime Against Humanity?
*SUPERB* question! Bravo!