[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/EW-02-27-12-Military.mp3|titles=EW 02-27-12 Military]
Some political candidates vehemently deny global climate change. And several conservative think-tanks have an agenda focused on discrediting the scientific evidence for human effects on climate. But deep inside the U.S. Pentagon, officials take climate change very seriously.
A warmer world, with significant shifts in precipitation, may lead to droughts, famines, and civil unrest—things that call for military action. Humanitarian missions to supply food and medicines to regions afflicted by crop failures and emergent disease are a future likelihood. And many have noted that water, not oil, may drive the next conflicts between nations.
The U.S. Navy, with its operations focused on the coast, is deeply concerned with the effects of sea-level rise—already ongoing, but expected to accelerate—on its infrastructure. As a result of melting sea ice, the Navy also faces the opening of a vast new ocean—the Arctic.
The U.S. military is a firm believer that climate change poses real risks for our nation, which could increase calls for deployments and military costs. Yet unlike our European peers, a substantial number of American citizens deny the scientific evidence for climate change.
This is probably because political action groups, well funded by the fossil fuel industry, have thrown a barrage of counter-arguments before U.S. citizens to confuse the issue. Science has been cast as biased. And climate change has become a partisan issue.
The fact that the Pentagon, with its near trillion dollar budget and innumerable demands on its time, is concerned about climate change, should give us pause.
The generals are worried, and we should be too.
Photo, taken on January 12, 2008 using a Canon PowerShot SD700 IS, courtesy of David B. Gleason via Flickr.