More Security Implications of Climate Change
Wired’s Danger Room writes about the military security implications of climate change, taking the lead from Mr. Thomas Fingar’s — Chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council — trip to Capitol Hill last month.
Summarizing:
- Climate change will have wide-ranging security implications globally “worsening existing problems — such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions.”
- Intra- and interstate conflict will become more common over competition for resources, especially in the developing world
- The developed West will likely face
- Immigration pressures from those feeling the conflict of the developing world
- Safety and maintenance and repair pressures over weather damage
- Food and resource access and distribution conflict internally
- Legitimacy and control problems if the state is unable to meet constituent requirements
On immigration, Fingar testified, the United States “will need to anticipate and plan for growing immigration pressures. Although sea level rise is probably a slow and long-term development, extreme weather events and growing evidence of inundation will motivate many to move sooner rather than later.”
And he offers a reality that is too often dismissed, rather than being captured by debate: that the solutions themselves can often do damage, too — at least in the short term.
Government, business, and public efforts to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies to deal with climate change — from policies to reduce greenhouse gasses to plans to reduce exposure to climate change or capitalize on potential impacts — may affect US national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself.
Greenwashing, for instance, is one example of businesses efforts on climate change that continues to result in substantial harm — through delay, confusion, and ongoing wealth transfer to old corporations. Corporate welfare directed at energy profiteers under the guise of environmentalism — like Stelmach’s $2 billion carbon capture and sequestration transfer — ensures corporatists won’t be required to capture the costs of their activity in their bottom lines.
If action on climate change requires massive wealth transfer from public coffers to R&D for private big-oil, we need to more clearly understand what problem we’re trying to solve. Are we trying to maintain the viability of the petrocracy or are we trying to mitigate public risks? Certainly, such action doesn’t insulate our province from resource scarcity and climate risk, but merely ensures the marketability of our product in a conflict-ridden global energy market.
Sadly, as the security and public safety challenges of climate change become better understood, the hypocrisy and core beneficiaries of public policy becomes clearer.
Climate Change May Sap Military, Intel Chief Says
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