New Report on Climate Change: Be Prepared

Defense Department paper paints sober portrait of potentially dire effects of global warming

Posted: 04-Mar-2004; Updated: 28-Jul-2009

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Add one more compelling reason for action on climate change: national security. Thanks to a recent report commissioned by the Department of Defense, it is even harder now for naysayers to hide in the sand or argue against taking action.

The report - titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security - begins, "there is substantial evidence to indicate that significant global warming will occur during the 21sth century."  Without mincing words, or overstating the case, it calls climate change a "U.S. national security concern" and warns the Defense Department against going forward without being prepared for severe climate consequences that could alter the political and economic states of nations across the globe, destabilizing regions and provoking conflict.

"This is a level-headed, thoughtful analysis - providing a context that seem particularly appropriate today," said Steve Cochran, director of strategic communications for Environmental Defense.  "National leaders should take heed, and take steps like passing The Climate Stewardship Act, to manage these threats."  (Click here to sign our petition in support of this landmark bill to curb greenhouse gas emissions.)

A Two-Pronged Attack

The report has something of a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" message and outlines two possibilities: a gradual warming of the climate scenario and a less likely - but more extreme - abrupt cooling one.  Because current warming changes have been gradual so far, that scenario would be more manageable for most of the world and more likely.  Yet, even as nations are currently planning ways to adapt to changes this kind of climate shift might bring, the report presents a kind of domino theory hypothetical situation that challenges easy adaptation.

In the gradual change scenario, less rainfall, for instance, in Australia could mean a 15 percent drop in grazing grass, which could translate to a reduction in the average weight of cattle and ultimately compromise supplies of beef.  With a lowered weight, milk production is also likely to decrease. 

And although projections show that areas in Northern Europe, Russia and North America will likely benefit agriculturally because of longer growing seasons, places like southern Europe, Africa, and Central and South America will likely experience negative effects such as "increased dryness, heat, water shortages, and reduced [agriculture] production."

"This report pretty much restates what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (an international scientific body tasked with assessing information surrounding global warming) has been saying all along:  that even with a middle-of-the-road projection for global warming, there will be increases in heat waves, droughts, floods, and sea level, with serious economic and ecological impacts.  All this is likely to happen regardless of whether or not the oceanic circulation grinds to a halt," said Dr. James Wang, an atmospheric scientist for Environmental Defense.

Worse, if this gradual warming were to slow down the ocean?s thermohaline conveyor, a potent ocean current encircling the Earth, even this better case scenario could be devastating and usher in an Ice Age.  Scientific evidence shows that this is precisely how two previous ice ages occurred. 

The focus of the report, though, is the potentially devastating "what if" scenario an abrupt climate change could likely have on Earth and its human population.  Though such a scenario is completely uncertain, the report's resounding message is clear: Be prepared for the worst because there are "potentially dire consequences."  Thus, the report concludes, the conversation around global warming should be pushed beyond a "scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern."

Evidence "On the Rocks"

Past climate changes and their devastating effects on the Earth serve as a lens through which the report previews a possible abrupt climate change scenario.  Scientific evidence preserved in an ice core in Greenland shows us that 8,200 years ago after an extended warming period similar to today's, a sudden cooling wreaked havoc on the Earth, prompting severe winters in Europe, icebergs as far south as Portugal, and agricultural slowdowns.

This and two other extended cold periods are thought to have been caused by a shutdown of the oceanic circulation, which normally carries a significant amount of heat to northerly latitudes of Europe.  Such changes would have an even more profound effect today because of dense populations in those areas.

In the abrupt climate change scenario, the report lays out potentially devastating impacts such as severe storms and floods on islands like Tarawa and Tuvalu near New Zealand, levee-bursting storms that make coastal cities such as The Hague uninhabitable, Tibetan populations relocating because of a melting of the Himalayas, and water distribution problems in California due to an infiltration of salt water into the state's water transportation system.

Because such regions are home to some 400 million people, the report warns of mass exoduses from less prosperous places to areas with more resources for adaptation.  Droughts, strained energy and food supplies - a "desperate need for natural resources such as energy, food and water" - could trigger military action.  Strange alliances between countries in dire need could form, leading to intense wars between these new groups of haves and the have nots.  Such is a traditional rationale for warfare.  And although modern civilization has veered away from such reasons for fighting, warfare sparked by abrupt climate change could return civilizations to the "norm of constant battles for diminishing resources."

"Humans fight when they outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural environment," the report paraphrases from Carrying Capacity, Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc's new book about the relationship between the Earth's ability to sustain human populations and warfare.  "Every time there is a choice between starving and raiding, humans raid."

In sum, the report emphasizes being prepared and strategically planning for a situation that is impossible to predict but is nevertheless not implausible.  Climate change is occurring, it reminds us, and not taking action now to prevent future catastrophe could be a grave mistake.

Read the full report.  (Adobe Acrobat Reader required.)