Center for a New American Security

November 13, 2008 - According to Joshua Busby, non-resident fellow at CNAS and assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, "More and more, climate change will require mass mobilizations of the military to cope with humanitarian disasters."

The nation's reliance on oil for 96 percent of transportation fuel shifts power to governments unconcerned with or even hostile to U.S. interests, and its reliance on coal for half of the electricity produced is ravaging the environment and contributing to climate change.

Climate change is a threat to the nations security. Politicians and environmentalists who want to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions pumped into the atmosphere are using this argument to woo conservative skeptics to their side in the ongoing energy/global warming debate.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, is among those who are convinced. Shortly before a recent Senate debate on the issue, he and two retired military leaders held a press conference.

Is climate change really a national security issue?  We think so.

Last week Al Gore’s nonprofit organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, launched the “We Campaign,” a $300 million public awareness campaign aiming to move climate change up the nation’s priority list and increase constituent pressure on decision makers in Washington. However, oil companies, utility representatives, and a variety of other organizations have all recently run ads strikingly similar in content and advocating countless “solutions” to this set of problems.

WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- U.S. foreign affairs and military experts will stage a war game this summer to study and highlight the national security threats posed by global warming.

The exercise, being staged by a coalition of seven think tanks and other non-profits called the Climate Change Consortium, will get technical assistance from the U.S. National Laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tenn., a statement from the organizers said Tuesday.

Last year, a group of retired American military officers warned that, left unchecked, climate change could lead to international instability.

The problems could include refugees driven by drought, loss of food supplies, and rising sea levels: They might include violent conflicts, these generals and admirals said. The warning was an early sign from senior military leaders that climate change could have a serious national-security dimension.

Today’s popular media has increasingly focused the public’s attention on the issue of human-caused climate change. Yet the media has not been effective in persuading the public that global climate change is a looming danger. A fundamental change in the perception of this threat is critical if people are to alter personal behavior to mitigate these concerns and provide the political capital necessary for legislators to address climate change effectively.

Energy and climate change issues are taking new prominence in this presidential primary campaign season. The candidates all have energy sections on their websites, and all have long standard remarks on the topic. Most discuss taking some action on climate change as necessity at best, and benign at minimum. Proposals for combating global warming and lessening energy dependence put forth by every campaign rely heavily on similar policies, such as increased research and development funding to spark innovation and increased use of domestic energy sources such as biofuels and renewables.

If rising waters and violent storms whipped into oblivion a key U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia, would such a catastrophe qualify as a national security crisis or as a climate change scourge?