Global warming is a national security issue
Clark posted the following entry to his blog on September 22, 2005:
The mildest projections by experts predict a 10-degree average increase in global temperatures in the next 90 years. This will cause sea levels to rise approximately two feet, displacing 100 million in low-lying areas of the world. Other estimates are less optimistic. For example, if the Greenland icecap were to melt, then sea levels could rise between 7-10 meters, making large areas of our world today uninhabitable.
The difficulty is that the carbon in the atmosphere will remain suspended for 100 years or more. So global warming is in place and according to scientists, it is unlikely to be reversed.
What can we do to slow the rate? And how do we deal with the consequences?
To slow the rate of global warming is to reduce appreciably the greenhouse gas emissions. This is the familiar agenda of the global warming concern. However, with the consequences of global warming already so severe, global warming has to be treated as a national security problem, involving not just the EPA but also the National Security Council and the top leadership of America. Global warming is a national security issue.
In my view, global warming's impact on climate change will impact human populations in three ways: displacement, disaster and political tensions.
First, warmer temperatures thin arctic ice sheets, raising sea levels. Higher water levels will dislocate 100 million people currently living in coastal areas.
Disasters will come with warming sea temperatures and changes in salinity levels which lead to stronger and more frequent hurricanes which means storms such as Rita and Katrina, more tornadoes, and extensive droughts. Furthermore, these massive storms could strike not just the Gulf Coast, but the Pacific Coast as well, causing vast destruction. Shifts in precipitation patterns will impact agricultural capacities and complicate access to drinking water.
Dislocation and disaster will force people and nations to compete for land, food, and water. Although these effects will not imperil American security per se, many other nations will be forced into a state of strife while coping with these changes, causing tension between countries and providing a destabilizing force in the world stretching to the limits treaties, traditions, and relationships between and among nations.
It is crucial that we begin exercising real leadership now to slow down and begin to confront the effects global warming will have on our national security. What kinds of things can we each do to make a difference? I look forward to reading your thoughts on this issue.
