Admiral Calls cimate Change Top Security Issue..Daily Kos..

[Stuart G]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/09/1192924/-Admiral-calls-Climate-Change-top-security-issue

According to the Commander of U.S. Forces Pacific (PACCOM),

by A. Seigal...for Climate Hawks.

...significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’

Admiral Samuel Locklear had a meeting the other day with national security experts at Tufts and Harvard. After this session, he met with a reporter who asked him asked what the top security threat was in the Pacific Ocean. Rather than highlighting Chinese ballistic missiles, the new Chinese Navy aircraft carrier, North Korean nuclear weapons, or other traditional military threats, Admiral Locklear looked to a larger definition of national security.

Locklear commented that “People are surprised sometimes” that he highlights climate change -- despite an ability to discuss a wide-range of threats, from cyber-war to the North Koreans. However, it is the risks -- from natural disasters to long-term sea-level rise threats to Pacific nations that has his deepest attention.


“You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.” Climate Change merits national security -- military -- attention for very pragmatic reasons. Climate Change merits national security -- military -- attention for very pragmatic reasons.

"The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”

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Strange find...Six Years ago babylonsister put this one up (I was checking to see if other posts like this have been posted)......April 15, 2007..on same subject..I guess the idea is not new......title of article in 2007:

Top ex-military leaders call global warming major security risk

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x659720

Here us link to the original article that babylonsister found at Huffington Post...April 15, 2007

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070415/na-gen-us-global-warming-security/