Remember that Pentagon report that said the threat to global stability due to climate change eclipses that of terrorism? Among other things, the report predicted European cities plunging into the sea, a ‘Siberian’ climate in the UK by 2020, mega-droughts, famine, widespread rioting, and potential nuclear conflicts.
‘Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,’ concludes the Pentagon analysis. ‘Once again, warfare would define human life.’
GOP Senator, and possible Presidential candidate, Chuck Hagel, and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, now want a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to evaluate the security challenges presented by climate change. And they aren’t just talking, last week the duo introduced a bill to require federal agencies to collaborate on such an NIE.
“For years, too many of us have viewed global warming as simply an environmental or economic issue,” Durbin said in introducing the bill at a Senate hearing last week. “We now need to consider it as a security concern.”
Hagel, who led efforts to block US participation in the Kyoto Protocol (because developing nations were not included), has introduced bills to combat climate change in the past, but has also hinted that global warming may be due to natural climate cycles. Nonetheless, he shares Durbin’s concern about the implications of climate change:
“Sen. Durbin and I differ on policy initiatives designed to reduce the impact of climate change,” Hagel said at the hearing. “We do agree, however, on the need to assess potential impacts of the changing climate on U.S. national security interests.”
More at [Grist.org]