In one of its strongest statements yet on the need to prepare for climate change, the Defense Department today released a report that says global warming “poses immediate risks to U.S. national security” and will exacerbate national security-related threats ranging “from infectious disease to terrorism.”
The report, embedded below, builds on climate readiness planning at the Pentagon that stretches back to the George W. Bush administration. But today’s report is the first to frame climate change as a serious near-term challenge for strategic military operations; previous reports have tended to focus on long-term threats to bases and other infrastructure.
The report “is quite an evolution of the DOD’s thinking on understanding and addressing climate threats,” said Francesco Femia, co-director of the Center for Climate and Security. “The Department is not looking out into the future, it’s looking at what’s happening now.”
Read more: http://grist.org/climate-energy/pentagon-says-we-could-soon-be-fighting-climate-wars/
The document, by the way, makes for interesting reading… Ed.
