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US Military Goes to War with Climate Skeptics
Political action on climate change may be mired in Congress, but one arm of government at least is acting: the Pentagon
Federal legislation to combat climate change is quashed for the foreseeable future, scuttled by congressional climate cranks who allege the climate-science jury is still out. What's become clear is that, for some, the jury will always be out. We can't stack scientific facts high enough to hop over the fortified ideological walls they've erected around themselves. Fortunately, though, a four-star trump card waits in the wings: the US national security apparatus.
In 2006, I participated on a panel at the United Nations climate change conference in Nairobi called "Communicating Climate Change". With Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chair Rajendra Pachauri and respected Arctic scientist Pål Prestud on board, we aimed to figure out ways to convey climate change and its effects with greater precision and weight.
An hour before the panel commenced, we learned the communications director for climate curmudgeons, Senator James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) had elbowed his way onto the rostrum. Bleating bias – the panel skewed toward the widely held scientific consensus that climate change is real and humans are causing it – the infiltrator proceeded to hijack the panel. Rather than engaging the topic at hand, he questioned the scientific existence of climate change, leveled ad hominem attacks against various panelists, while brandishing "A Skeptic's Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism" (a document produced by his office).
During the discussion period, the largely international audience responded in good faith, attempting to convince Inhofe's righthand man that the most up-to-date science undercut his worldview, that scientists weren't a grant-hungry cabal fiending for the next funding fix. Unfazed, he didn't budge – not a single part per million.
Five years later feels like a timewarp, with the political promise of 2006 suspended in a molasses haze. 2011 brought a fresh congressional crop content to ignore what the rest of the world accepts: the IPCC's scientific consensus on climate change. When Henry Waxman (Democrat, California) tried to amend to the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, to put the House of Representatives on record recognizing that climate change is occurring, is caused in large part by humans and presents serious public health risks, it was summarily shot down. Only one Republican broke ranks and voted in favor (David Reichert of Washington state).
Enter what some might view as a counter-intuitive counterweight: US military brass. A recent report, "A National Strategic Narrative" (pdf), written by two special assistants to chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mike Mullen, argued, "We must recognize that security means more than defence." Part of this entails pressing past "a strategy of containment to a strategy of sustainment (sustainability)". They went on to assert climate change is "already shaping a 'new normal' in our strategic environment".
For years, in fact, high-level national security officials both inside the Pentagon and in think-tank land have been acknowledging climate change is for real and that we need to take action to preserve and enhance US national security interests. The Pentagon itself stated unequivocally in its February 2010 in its Quadrennial Defense Review Report (pdf), "Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment." It noted the department of defence is actively "developing policies and plans to manage the effects of climate change on its operating environment, missions and facilities".
CNA Corporation, a nonprofit that conducts research for the Navy and Marines, echoed the Pentagon's urgency, writing, "Climate change, from the Military Advisory Board's perspective, presents significant risks to America's national security." The Army Environmental Policy Institute, the National Intelligence Council and the Centre for a New American Security have issued similar reports on the dangers of runaway climate change and what it could mean for geopolitics.
This isn't a tree-hugging festival. It's the US military and its partners making clear-eyed calculations based on the best available climate science.
So, why this quiet camaraderie between scientists and military higher-ups? The answer, most certainly, is uncertainty.
Uncertainty is an inherent element of honest science. But in the political sphere, uncertainty has been harnessed as an alibi for denial and inaction. The military, however, operates under conditions of uncertainty all the time. Like scientists, they wade through the unknown to assess varying degrees of risk. As CNA Corporation put it, military leaders "don't see the range of possibilities as justification for inaction. Risk is at the heart of their job."
Climate cranks – many of them the same people perpetually hectoring us about the perils of national security – are choosing to ignore the seriousness of climate change even when the national-security experts they champion are telling us to do just that. Talk about cherry-picking data.
While Congress members like Fred Upton (Republican, Michigan) yowl about the EPA's efforts to regulate carbon emissions as "an unconstitutional power grab" and attach the term "job-killing" to every piece of environmental legislation with a political pulse, national security officials have been offering dire warnings about the perils of climate disruption and its offshoots like food shortage, water depletion and massive migration.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been holding shambolic hearings on climate change, should invite climate-minded national security gurus to testify. Perhaps they can lob some reality into the ideological fortress of denial before whipsaw climate volatility becomes our everyday reality.
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30 Comments so far
Show AllLike it or not, ice in the Artic Ocean is melting, making it easier for ships of all kinds to get through. That alone must concern the Pentagon. All of a sudden, a reasonably effective barrier betwen us and the Russians is no longer secure. I wonder if Senator Imhofe would ridicule comments on national security made by Admiral Mullen.
To some extent this article is old news. Some elements of the military have been warning about the reality of climate change for several years.
That said, it is always depressing to see the left and progressives embrace anyone willing to "yes, it's true" withut questioning their motives or their intentions.
Quick show of hands: Who here thinks that the military will advocate for all of the sensible measures to reduce carbon emmissions? Who here thinks that the oxymoronic world of military intelligence will be proactive rather than reactive; that is, will they advocate for trying to reduce or mitigate rising temperatures or will they just advocate for a larger buidup of military might to prepare for the inevitable mass migration of humanity, land wars, diminishing food supplies, etc, etc.
Do you really think that US military is going to be a reliable ally in the real challenges of climate change?
Get a grip, and don't be so naive.
Right on! It's time we stopped the hero worship and saw the military as what they are: armed forces paid to kill on behalf of the governments that pay them.
Why should this be reassuring? Now there are guns on your side? Thing about the military is they follow orders. One should question who they are now getting their orders from and for what purpose.
When I see them conserving on petroleum products, smogging their vehicles of warfare and refusing to drop contaminating bombs perhaps I might view them with some credibility. What I am coming away with is their willingness to militarily enforce what they deem as risk reduction.
Actually the military is going green. During the Afghan war they have discovered how difficult it is to transport gas. So they have been converting to solar power generators for their bases and other ways to reduce the need for oil. Now this has just been going on for the last couple of years, but from what I read the military is planning on expanding this. I don't know how far they will go, but they are making the effort to switch.
Now I have seen nothing to suggest that they will stop using uranium depleted shells, so that is one aspect that I don't see changing.
When 45% of Americans do not believe in global warming and a further 10% do not see any human connection, you begin to realize the power of Imhoff in the Senate. Imhoff was closely involved with Jerry Falwell and his Thomas Road Baptist Church (the founder of the moral majority) who have climate links to Imhoff on their website and treat his word as gospel.
No self-respecting scientest wants to subject himself to Imhoff's interogations.
Weeks, if not months, of preparation are arrogantly challenged, with demands of more information hurled at those who must respond to the almighty senator.
The military has been closely monitoring resource and climate issues. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan may be as much about water as about terrorism.
Iraq is about to be shut off from Turkish water. The Kurds, who control the remaining water of Iraq are no friends of the south, The US must referee to keep enough water in the south to allow oil extraction.
Afghanistan is one of the few remaining sources of glacial water for Pakistan.
Pakistan is already under threat from India, which is in the process of damming up the glacial runoffs for the Indus River, India, in return is threatened by China which controls the glacial runoffs of Tibet (most of the Himalayas).If India cuts off Pakistan, Afghanistan is the only source of water.
Already, Pakistan is moving closer to China ( especially in the last several weeks, since their disagreements over OBL) to guarantee water. Pakistan does not have the ability to move its populations as is the case with India.
The US military is aware that water may be the key problem in the Middle East and in South Asia - a problem which affects more than half of the world's population.
And other climate change concerns - Yemen is running out of water. The Gaza Strip of Palestine is running out of clean water. Many Middle Eastern countries are facing food shortages as crops fail in exporting countries such as Russia. Regime change is as more about the doubling of food prices in places where much of your income goes into providing minimal food to your family.
Unfortuantely, we need the military to balance the bombast of Imhoff and the cast of clowns in Congress.
I don't agree with your sense of "balance".
And water is the next fundamental resource the financial world will seek to control. Bush made that clear with his purchase of land in Paraguay. Sitting on the largest aquifer in the area.
After water, what next the largest military and financial markets control the air? And who controls the "military"? I thought our constitution called for it's control by that "cast of clowns" elected by the people called the "congress". I'm guessing you would prefer that the world bank do so.
Can anyone tell me exactly what the "Military" looks like? I've had this image in my mind for most of my 3/4 of a century life, but in the past decade that image has morphed into a very indistinct, fuzzy monstrosity that I can't quite wrap my mind around. I'm pretty certain the young people who enlist for a few years don't enter into the picture; they're just the "grunts" who come and go, staying alive if they're lucky, sometimes not so lucky; nor even the few who end up making it a career, because they seem to be only pieces on a chess board that are being shoved here and there, sometimes dumped for various reasons. So what exactly is it? When someone writes that the Military is for or against something, is it just the few who speak for the Pentagon; the massive budget; the monstrous weapons complex; ...?
DUCK: Thank you for the highly intelligent post.
The topic under discussion is that because some key U.S. military leaders SEE the obvious signs of climate change, their realization should be brought to bear upon domestic policy-making decisions. It is not about how green the miliitary will elect to go...
It's clear to me that Garden, Mark, & Justaman want to hijack the thread by using our natural suspicion of twisted military motives as a way to take the heat off climate change, itself. This is a deflection device.
One point not addressed is that it's not so much the matter of uncertainty, that's holding back meaningful GREEN investments. iRather, it's that many American businesses do not want to spend the money they don't have to. Money is the sacred cow of Amerika's industrialists, and anything that will cost them mere pennies on the dollar is enough to send many into apoplexy, when not funding the latest "Think Tank" prepared to muddy the water with respect to climate change.
Even before climate chaos reached the level it's now at, American automakers made the morally reprehensible decision to build the biggest behemoths they could. These had lousy gas mileage. So instead of beefing up on conservation, they worked (perhaps in alliance with big oil moguls) to keep the fuel burning. I think this was one of the most morally repugnant business decisions of recent times.
Ralph Nader made a name for himself by exposing how an automaker decided NOT to fix a small glitch, but instead decided to play the odds, dealing with whatever lawsuits would potentially follow.
It's about the money!
If somehow all these rich fools could be made to realize that the sums they gather together will never be inherited by members of their clans if they don't ACT to thwart worse climate changes, by investing in Greener Tomorrows, then maybe they'll be able to see past initial costs to what REALLY matters.
Siouxrose --
Appreciate your comments here because some of the responders seem to have drowned the baby in the bathwater.
Boykoff is not trying to "greenwash" the military or the U.S. Empire -- he's simply explaining that even the the U.S. military is rational enough to acknowledge that anthropogenic global climate chaos is a looming threat.
The U.S. political class is currently locked into a wildly irrational resistance to any response to climate threats. The cornerstone is a fanatic ideological and religious rejection of the reality of climate change. At it's root this fanaticism is probably based on greed and money; powerful economic interests select ideologues who will enact policies that maximize their profits.
However, hostility toward the science of anthropogenic climate change has now become a major litmus test for right-wing ideology-- along with God, guns, the 'free market', anti-abortion obsessions, etc. A general hostility to primary sciences such as cosmology & physics, geology & evolutionary biology is also pervasive although not necessarily a hostility to the technological fruits of modern science-- such as computers, killer drones, jets, the petroleum industry, etc.
How can the U.S. began to implement rational policies to respond to climate change if climate change denial is ascendent in the U.S. Congress? How can we expect to galvanize the U.S. public if a huge segment believes it is all 'hot air' emanating from pointy headed scientists who lack common sense?
The Obama Administration, even while admitting anthropogenic climate threats, has essentially joined the right-wing denialists in pushing it's purely opportunistic "business as usual" policies.
Most people who read Common Dreams don't need the U.S. military to guide them on climate change. Boykin is certainly not suggesting you stop your donations to 350.org or the Center for Biological Diversity or burn your membership card in the World Wildlife Fund -- and join the Marine Corp.
Boykoff's argument is that the U.S. military's concerns might be able to break through the ideological blinders of the Congress -- and much of the public -- where scientists such as James Hansen cannot reach them.
RANDY: You're a top-notch thinker in my book! In one short post you hit on all the salient points and deconstructed the false theology of those that would send us all to earth--as-Hell (temperature wise, among other things).
Thank you so much for laying out the points with a logic I don't think anyone can touch, no less diminish. You are a genuine credit to this forum. Bravo!
(This post is a keeper!)
Great posts Randy and Siouxrose!
Progressives should object strenuously to the use of "A National Strategic Narrative" to bolster the case for climate change.
That document is a sweeping rationalization for American Empire that attempts to co-opt issues of global social, economic and environmental justice to the objective of an expanding military-industrial-political complex. Read the damned thing, and weep.
Lambs who lie down with lions deserve to be eaten.
Excellent comment. It gets scarier by the day. And so many are clueless.
"The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been holding shambolic hearings on climate change, should invite climate-minded national security gurus to testify. Perhaps they can lob some reality into the ideological fortress of denial before whipsaw climate volatility becomes our everyday reality."
What a crock. "Climate minded national security gurus" who exactly are they? Perhaps highly trained Xe staff? For sale to the highest bidder. I suggest you seek out some reality before you put together a sentence like: " Perhaps they can lob some reality into the ideological fortress of denial before whipsaw climate volatility becomes our everyday reality." It's meaningless dribble meant to ramp up some sort of team mentality. Fear mongering at it's worst. Your use of "whipsaw" exposes your financial market ties.
I am unsure if you are the poster who challenged climate change, itself, in threads some weeks ago? I seem to remember making a mental note of your use of the word "Garden" in your screen name, as it contrasted with your posted opinions. These seemed antithetical to any Green Premise.
There are some who are using the ruse that climate change is just a way to extract funds or grant some people riches through carbon schemes and scams.
One thing has NOTHING to do with the other. There will always be people on the take, wedded to the latest scam. However, the reality of human graft does NOTHING to change the FACTS of climate change. Those who focus on the former, tend to want to deflect focus from the latter.
I smell a rat in your posts. You seem intent upon knee-capping any efforts to put any meaningful measures into place. You're using the military as a boogey man for the wrong ends! IF it takes the route of acting to preserve some form of genuine security, then at last its muscles might be put to sane use!
Perhaps this is a small sign that the American military has 'learned' its' lesson from being a largely unquestioning participant in Dubya's wars (in terms of going ahead on lies and faulty preconditions) & has decided to base policy on actual facts -- such as global warming exists and presents looming threats that they had better prepare for. That this puts them into uncomfortable contradiction with their traditional allies in the fossil fuels industries is ironic in a schadenfreude sort of way. We are still quite far away from what the military should be doing in relation to global warming: shutting down those polluters whose greed is so sociopathic as to endanger us all, and at the point of a gun. It would be then that for a rare moment, the military would actually an accomplish a mission that accords with its' stated goals: protect the people.
Thank you, Nate. You see what I see, and laid it out with wisdom.
If the US military are good for one thing, it is forward looking. This is not to say that they have always been right, or have correctly identified emerging threats. However, they have for at least 22 years been very serious about the threat of climate change, availability of fresh water, and over-population. I'm saying that the US military have been aware and planning long before Dubya's aggressions.
Scenarios envisioned by the military have not been one of "shutting down polluters", but more in identifying geographic regions where turmoil (due to deteriorating local conditions) emerges, and the logistics of operating in such environments.
Having said that, the military don't always get it right. Consider that 12 years ago the military were completely unprepared for desert and urban warfare against an irregular army. An emerging battlefield may be the arctic for which the military are mostly unprepared, and will have to rediscover the hard lessons learned during the Cold War.
The blunders and miscalculations of the US military are legion and well documented. That is why I prefaced my comment with the word 'Perhaps.' I drew small and ironic pleasure from this small recognition of Realpolitik (and global warming is a problem that any honest practitioner of Realpolitik takes into account) has maybe permeated the Pentagon. That the military is gearing up to 'protecting our borders from climate refugees' instead of shutting down the corporate sociopaths whom are creating and profiting off of the problem is wrong-headed, sad, and all too typical.
If the military understands climate change can have negative effects for Americans' security, why doesn't it start to reduce its own consumption of petroleum?
The u.s military is the world's single largest consumer of petroleum and hands down the planet's worst polluter.
I can't be too thrilled at the greenwashing of an enterprise that ultimately runs on blood.
I agree, OS. The best thing the military can do about climate change is to shut itself down. The production of war planes, the bombs, the transport of troops and materials are all energy hogs that serve no good purpose for most of the people of the earth.
It's worthwhile noting that regimes in the past that have identified a resource problem that could impact "national security" have met the threat by denying non-military entities the resource. E.g., in years when crop yields were bad, the military ate and the people didn't. North Korea is a blatant current example of that policy.
It's not hard to see that playing out here, too: if food or fuel becomes scare, or the level of fuel use becomes too polluting, the ruling classes and their bodyguards, the military, go to the head of the line and the rest of us either share out whatever little is left, or are told we must somehow get by without.
And if we're unable to get by, then we're charged and convicted of sabotaging national security and are handed over to some corporation as slave labor, to share a bunk behind barbed wire.
Arbeit macht frei.
Everyone writing here sounds pretty savvy. We need to be united as a people, be involved in the political system. It's crucial that we do in this period until we at least get a long-term renewable energy policy. Are you involved? Write, talk, go to meetings, join movements, sign petitions, speak up - you know the drill. Go bitch publicly!
This is a story I've tracked as an indie journalist for over 15 years now. The Pentagon has been creating "global warming defense scenarios" for at least that long. These are sophisticated and computer modeled. They are designed to help the U.S. exploit probable political and resource distribution changes brought about by global warming, which our masters of war and their corporate and political bankrollers and abetters believe they can win just like they believed they could win a "limited thermonuclear war" between the USSR and US in the Cold War era--something we very nearly put to the test during the Kennedy Administration.
Corporate & Political infighting will soon be swept aside by necessity as Many natural planetary recovery limits have been exceeded, climate cycle is beyond human control and requires much of the land mankind now inhabits, mass migration to higher ground is inevitable, as are solar events, earthquakes etc. etc. To avoid major pandemics and resource depletion humanity must rapidly depart from their ego, fear based, agenda centric, competitive, methods of conducting their affairs... Developing a cooperative, sustainable, peaceful society, or perish as they are... C.H.A.O.S.
"This isn't a tree-hugging festival. It's the US military and its partners making clear-eyed calculations based on the best available climate science."
It may appear that the author is taking a stand for the people and planet in writing such an article. But even he can be shown to exhibit rightwing extremist tendencies in doing so. In the above quote he is attempting to lend legitimacy and authority to the US military, and thereby to global warming, through its recognition by the thug enterprise.
But no idea needs the recognition of the most monstrously destructive entity in history. Its recognition can only be described accurately as intent to exploit, in devious zero-sum fashion, and at a monstrous level. What a disservice the author is doing to the reader by failing to point this out. I guess anyone who wished to debate this question will win in a nanosecond, if only the thugs would sit for that long at the table. Notice how very little public debate actually takes place in the USA and you'll start to see the writing on the wall.
The thug enterprise known as the US DOD has no legitimate role, so everyone please spare us the pretenses in your framing of whatever "hopeful" ideas you wish to convey.