Thursday
Jul302009
Climate Change a Threat To Nat’l Security Say Senators
Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 1:30PM
By Sam Wechsler - Talk Radio News Service
Climate change is a real and imminent threat to national security, said a group of senators Thursday during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
During a discussion regarding the value of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey bill), the senators agreed that it is important to decrease dependence on foreign oil.
“We’re not going to say no to importing all foreign oil, but when we look at some of the countries where we rely on for energy, [they are] countries that we would rather not be dealing with, that put us at risk when they cut off our supply,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
In addition to foreign oil, climate change may also affect the U.S.'s national security by heightening the intensity of conflicts abroad.
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, a witness at the hearing, likened climate change to a magnifying glass on global conflicts. He argued that climate change would create water shortages in some regions, crop failure, and cause environmentally displaced people to cross borders. “[Climate change] will place an avoidable and unacceptable burden on our young men and women in uniform now, and in generations to come,” said McGinn.
“I believe we must heed these warnings to protect our nation’s security,” added Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
Climate change is a real and imminent threat to national security, said a group of senators Thursday during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
During a discussion regarding the value of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Waxman-Markey bill), the senators agreed that it is important to decrease dependence on foreign oil.
“We’re not going to say no to importing all foreign oil, but when we look at some of the countries where we rely on for energy, [they are] countries that we would rather not be dealing with, that put us at risk when they cut off our supply,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
In addition to foreign oil, climate change may also affect the U.S.'s national security by heightening the intensity of conflicts abroad.
Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, a witness at the hearing, likened climate change to a magnifying glass on global conflicts. He argued that climate change would create water shortages in some regions, crop failure, and cause environmentally displaced people to cross borders. “[Climate change] will place an avoidable and unacceptable burden on our young men and women in uniform now, and in generations to come,” said McGinn.
“I believe we must heed these warnings to protect our nation’s security,” added Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
Reader Comments (1)
It is so tragic that even US intelligence is still grossly underestimating the severity and imminence of grave national security risks from global warming as predicted by (proven underestimations, for instance underestimating ocean rise by 1.6 times, and the disappearance of summer Arctic ocean ice by many decades) IPCC climate models:
"We underestimated the risks ... we underestimated the damage associated with temperature increases ... and we underestimated the probabilities of temperature increases." -- Sir Nicholas Stern, author of "The Stern Report," April 17, 2008
"Few seem to realise that the present IPCC models predict almost unanimously that by 2040 the average summer in Europe will be as hot as the summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died from heat. By then we may cool ourselves with air conditioning and learn to live in a climate no worse than that of Baghdad now. But without extensive irrigation the plants will die and both farming and natural ecosystems will be replaced by scrub and desert. What will there be to eat? The same dire changes will affect the rest of the world and I can envisage Americans migrating into Canada and the Chinese into Siberia but there may be little food for any of them." --Dr James Lovelock's lecture to the Royal Society, 29 Oct. '07