Climate Change and its National Security Implications Part II

The effects of climate change on humans will not arise as former Vice President Al Gore explains in his Inconvenient Truth nor will it be the cataclysmic Hollywood summer blockbuster brought to you by Jerry Bruckheimer.  Instead, it is a slow change that still has a severe impact on the human population of the planet.  

Lack of access to fresh water, diminished capacity to produce food, affects to human health and the loss of land are the larger impacts of humans based on climate change.  These factors have an effect on the national security policies of not only the United States, but also all of the other developed nations in the world.

Studies have shown that the increased ferocity of storm systems around the planet, ranging from Katrina in 2005 to the cyclone that devastated Myanmar in 2009 is affected by the warming of the planet.  Models have shown that the planet may see a rise in sea levels by 3 feet (1 meter) by the end of the current century.  There is also a possibility that this rise could increase based on receding ice on the planet uncovering permafrost that expels great amounts of methane that adds to the warming of the planet. 

Severe storms and rising sea levels affect coastal nations, none more than Bangladesh.

Bangladesh sits at thirty feet above sea level and protected by a series of dikes from the rising ocean.  The nation is a great risk against severe cyclones and the rising seas.  Estimates of a three-foot rise or greater in sea levels threatens Bangladesh through sea water affecting local water tables and invading crop lands, making it difficult to raise crops.  Threats of powerful cyclones rampaging across Bangladesh raises concerns of creating great numbers of refugees in the wake of these storms.  The very worst estimates show that Bangladesh will be mostly seawater or devastated by constant storms, leaving approximately 20 million refugees without homes. 

20 million refugees without homes streaming into India or Southeast Asia is a nightmare for those dealing with national security.  What will be done with these refugees who no longer have a home to return?  Where will they be relocated?  Will the stress of the influx of refugees have an adverse impact on the infrastructure of the neighboring nations leading to instability in the region?  These questions weigh heavily on the minds of security think tanks now studying the effects of climate change on security doctrines.

Even in the United States, dangers of rising sea levels are relevant.  For example, Norfolk, Virginia, the home of the Atlantic fleet and thirty percent of the US Navy's assets.  Norfolk is built on a filled in marsh and is currently feeling the effects of natural sinking matched with rising tides.  If Norfolk is no longer a suitable location for a base, six Nimitz class carriers and her escorts will have to find a new home that can handle the immense draft of the nuclear powered carriers. 

Norfolk and Bangladesh are not the only area affected; a majority of the world's population is located in close proximity to the oceans of the world.  Rising seas not only consume land but it also taints the local freshwater reservoirs.  Massive numbers of persons will be forced to move away from the coast in developed in lesser-developed nations.  These migrations will create stresses on the infrastructure of other nations, some greater than others. 

The concern will be those stresses on less developed nations and the potential of extremist groups taking advantage of the unfolding situation. 

Climate Change and its National Security Implications Part I

Climate Change and its National Security Implications Part I

Last year, I recall reading a column in the Forum that started with the following, and I paraphrase: “It’s snowing outside, so therefore there must be global climate change.” Along with the information disseminated from legitimate scientific sources such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, local weather observations sufficiently prove that climate scientists are really obscuring the truth of climate change: that there is no such phenomena as climate change.

But if that were the case, why is the Department of Defense taking steps to deal with reducing use of fossil fuels and studying affects of climate change?

The Navy established a goal to have a “Green Strike Group” that will run on bio-fuels by 2015. The Army and Marine Corps have run studies as to how to minimize the use of fossil fuels both in the field and on base. The Air Force by 2011 will be certified to use biofuels for flight. Rising costs in transporting fossil fuels and the vulnerability forward deployed forces in Afghanistan face in protecting those resources from insurgent attacks have forced the US military to seek new means to minimize that need for fossil fuels. The Department of Defense has organized senior officers to investigate the impacts of climate change on national security, involving members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other major commanders.

If climate change is just a canard created by climate scientists to secure more funding, then there would be no reason why the military would look to alternative sources of energy and investigate the impacts of climate change.

Climate change does have an impact on our ecosystem that directly affects humans. The following is just a short laundry list of those effects on our species:

1. A lack of access to supplies of fresh water. Sources of fresh water derive from mountain glaciers, rainfall, snowfall and subsequent snowmelt. Changes in temperature can lead to the reduction of snowfall that replenishes glaciers when they melt in the warmer seasons. With higher temperatures, there is more rainfall, leading to flooding during rainy seasons and less glacier run off during the drier seasons.

According to the 2007 CNA report on Climate Change and National Security, over 40% of the world’s population receives around half of its fresh drinking water from glaciers in the world. The bottom line, with rising global temperatures, the more flooding in the spring, similar to the floods that hammered the Midwest in 2009 and more droughts, similar to the droughts that have hammered sub Saharan Africa.

2. Diminished capacity to produce food. The before mentioned lack of glacier water during droughts lead to an inability to grow crops. With each 1.8 degree (F) rise in temperature there will be a 10% drop in grain production according to Lester Brown’s World Grain Stocks Fall to 57 Days of Consumption.

3. Human health will be affected greatly by climate change. The main issues are those of vector borne diseases and the impact on human health based on a lack of clean fresh water sources. The disaster in Katrina is an example of how a devastating climate event can cause the spread of disease or risks to human health (malaria, mold), the impact on humans without sufficient clean water (see the Superdome debacle) and the massive federal and state resources required to deal with the situation that unfolded.

4. The loss of land and major flooding that can lead to population displacement. As above, the Katrina disaster is a case study of the effects of flooding and land loss and the subsequent population displacement. Over two thirds of the human population lives in close proximity to coastlines around the world. Rising sea levels caused by the melting of Arctic and Antarctic glaciers will endanger major cities located near the ocean. The rising seas and its associated storm surges will affect populations clustered around the world’s major rivers as the salt water from the storm surges can contaminate ground water and destroy croplands.

These are the direct effects of climate change on humans. Next month, I will discuss how these effects contribute to threats against not only US National Security, but also on a worldwide scale. Then I will discuss what we can do to limit our contribution to anthropogenic climate change and how to influence our leaders to take stands to address these issues.

But for now, “Act Locally, Think Globally.”