Published: Sunday, September 20, 2009
CLIMATE CHANGE
A national security issue
It may have seemed that talk about global warming and a new energy policy cooled off as the health-care debate heated up this summer.
Health care has indeed commanded most of the headlines, but the push to put the nation on a serious path toward reducing carbon emissions and lessening its dependence on fossil fuels has continued behind the scenes.
In fact, the strategy for passing significant climate and energy legislation has expanded beyond President Obama’s initial themes of creating millions of green-energy jobs and taking a more aggressive, responsible approach to curbing climate change. Several retired military leaders and veterans organizations have begun lobbying for climate legislation as a national security imperative.
They include leaders of different political stripes — former Navy Secretary and GOP Sen. John Warner is among them, as is state Sen. Steve Hobbs (D-Lake Stevens), a veteran of the conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq. Hobbs was in Washington, D.C., recently to encourage undecided U.S. senators to vote for climate-change legislation.
The points they make are compelling.
For example, a report by a dozen retired admirals and generals, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” outlines the threats a warming globe poses to the U.S. military, including increased political instability in nations with already marginal living standards. Declining food production, increasing disease and a scarcity of clean water, they write, could foster conditions for internal conflicts and extremism, likely putting greater pressure on already stretched U.S. military forces.
And that’s on top of the problems created by America’s insatiable appetite for oil, which leaves us increasingly vulnerable to unfriendly regimes and, in fact, helps to fund the very terrorism our armed forces are fighting overseas.
The admirals’ and generals’ report notes that because the challenges of climate change, energy dependence and national security are intertwined, their solutions are, too. Technologies that improve energy efficiency also reduce carbon emissions and, in turn, boost our security.
They understand that doubts remain about the severity of climate change and how much carbon emissions contribute to it, but argue that the time to act is nonetheless now.
“As military leaders,” they write, “we know we cannot wait for certainty. Failing to act because a warning isn’t precise enough is unacceptable.”
They’re right. As a nation, we’ve already waited too long. The need to encourage the development of alternative energy sources and reduce carbon emissions is urgent. Our environment, economy and our very security depend on it.
Health care has indeed commanded most of the headlines, but the push to put the nation on a serious path toward reducing carbon emissions and lessening its dependence on fossil fuels has continued behind the scenes.
In fact, the strategy for passing significant climate and energy legislation has expanded beyond President Obama’s initial themes of creating millions of green-energy jobs and taking a more aggressive, responsible approach to curbing climate change. Several retired military leaders and veterans organizations have begun lobbying for climate legislation as a national security imperative.
They include leaders of different political stripes — former Navy Secretary and GOP Sen. John Warner is among them, as is state Sen. Steve Hobbs (D-Lake Stevens), a veteran of the conflicts in Kosovo and Iraq. Hobbs was in Washington, D.C., recently to encourage undecided U.S. senators to vote for climate-change legislation.
The points they make are compelling.
For example, a report by a dozen retired admirals and generals, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” outlines the threats a warming globe poses to the U.S. military, including increased political instability in nations with already marginal living standards. Declining food production, increasing disease and a scarcity of clean water, they write, could foster conditions for internal conflicts and extremism, likely putting greater pressure on already stretched U.S. military forces.
And that’s on top of the problems created by America’s insatiable appetite for oil, which leaves us increasingly vulnerable to unfriendly regimes and, in fact, helps to fund the very terrorism our armed forces are fighting overseas.
The admirals’ and generals’ report notes that because the challenges of climate change, energy dependence and national security are intertwined, their solutions are, too. Technologies that improve energy efficiency also reduce carbon emissions and, in turn, boost our security.
They understand that doubts remain about the severity of climate change and how much carbon emissions contribute to it, but argue that the time to act is nonetheless now.
“As military leaders,” they write, “we know we cannot wait for certainty. Failing to act because a warning isn’t precise enough is unacceptable.”
They’re right. As a nation, we’ve already waited too long. The need to encourage the development of alternative energy sources and reduce carbon emissions is urgent. Our environment, economy and our very security depend on it.
Comments
(