http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-08/mother-natures-nuclear-strike/full/Mother Nature's Nuclear Strike
by John Kerry
Climate change is catastrophic threat for all G-8 nations, writes the former Democratic nominee for president in a security memo he likens to President Bush’s pre-9/11 warning.
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Because of the magnitude of the consequences facing us, the national-security community has begun to take note. In 2007, 11 retired American admirals and generals issued a report from the Center for Naval Analyses warning that “Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national-security challenges for the United States.” In 2008, the final national-defense strategy of the Bush administration recognized climate change among key trends that will shape U.S. defense policy in the coming years. And the National Intelligence Council—the U.S. intelligence community’s think-tank—has concluded “global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national-security interests over the next 20 years.”
Nowhere is the connection between climate and security more direct than in South Asia—home to al Qaeda. Scientists now warn that the Himalayan glaciers which supply fresh water to a billion people in the region could disappear completely by 2035. Think about what this means: Water from the Himalayans flows through India and Pakistan. India’s rivers are not only vital to its agriculture but are also critical to its religious practice. Pakistan, for its part, is heavily dependent on irrigated farming to avoid famine. At a moment when the U.S. government is scrambling to ratchet down tensions and preparing to invest billions of dollars to strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to deliver for its people—climate change could work so powerfully in the opposite direction.
Worldwide, climate change risks making the most volatile places even more combustible.
The bottom line is that failure to tackle climate change risks much more than a ravaged environment: It risks a much more dangerous world, and a gravely threatened America.
* *
There’s much more to the climate-change challenge—threats to our military bases at home and abroad, threats to our allies, threats to stability in regions of the world the United States has invested billions of dollars and the lives of its sons and daughters.
Unfortunately, not everyone in Congress appreciates the stakes.
It’s tragic that we live at a time when if one were to dismiss the threat of terrorism, you’d be run out of Washington in the next election. But there are no similar political consequences if you dismiss the science and the facts about the threat posed by climate change.In less than six months, delegates from 192 nations will gather in Copenhagen to create a new global climate treaty. Between now and then, the United States Congress is expected to act on climate legislation. The decisions we make in these six months will determine whether we meet this challenge head-on and prevail or if we are to suffer the worst consequences of a warming planet.
This is our warning memo, America.
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