Global Warming as National Security

by Jordan Yerman | April 9, 2007 at 08:19 am

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Perhaps framing climate change in terms of "national security" is the only way to make it sexy for those in the White House. However, Bush and Company seems to be running down the clock on this one: commission endless studies that will last through the end of W's term.

The CIA and the Pentagon would for the first time be required to assess the national security implications of climate change under proposed legislation intended to elevate global warming to a national defense issue.

The bipartisan proposal, which its sponsors expect to pass in Congress with wide support, calls for the director of national intelligence to conduct the first-ever "national intelligence estimate" on global warming.

The effort would include pinpointing the regions at highest risk of humanitarian suffering and assessing the likelihood of wars erupting over diminishing water and other resources.

The measure also would order the Pentagon to undertake a series of war games to determine how global climate change could affect U.S. security, including "direct physical threats to the United States posed by extreme weather events such as hurricanes."

The growing attention to global warming as a national security issue could open new avenues of support for tougher efforts to limit greenhouse gases, specialists say.

I'm not concerned that the earth will explode if suburbanites keep driving Hummers: the earth will survive, but we would not be able to live upon it the way we do now.