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A group of retired military brass
issued a shocking report this week: global climate change could threaten
National Security. Yes, freak storms, floods, droughts and melting glaciers
could do for American warfighting what the Russian winter did for Napoleon’s
army and a hard rain did for the Spanish Armada. Heavens to Betsy: We’d better
get ready, said 11 retired three- and four-star generals and admirals, because
this typhoon has left the station. But, like all national security threats, it’s
gonna cost us.
The new report, which you can read
if you have no other life whatsoever at http://securityandclimate.cna.org/,
defines global warming in a whole new way as a “threat multiplier
in already fragile regions, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed states
— the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.” In plain English, we’re
going to have hundreds of millions of pissed off people when global warming
does for them what Hurricane Katrina did for New Orleans.
Among the pensioneers’ top
revelations: most U.S. Naval bases are actually built on the seacoasts, where
they are more likely to be impacted by severe weather than ships that are
docked inland—say, in Indiana
cornfields. Who could have ever guessed?
The report recommends that the United States
do what it can to stabilize global warming pollution and help developing nations
mitigate the worst effects. It says the U.S.
military should integrate the threat of global warming into military planning
and strategy; and introduce energy efficiency and alternative energy
technologies to improve U.S.
combat power. Here comes the hybrid Hummer, and the solar-powered Cruise Missile.
On the pollution the military emits
defending America’s
global oil empire, the report was, um, well…mum.
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