Pentagon official: Bush's unwillingness to acknowledge climate change

[G_j]

http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9882
Climate Change Alert


Patrick Doherty spent a decade in the field of international conflict resolution, working in the Middle East, Africa, Southeastern Europe and the Caucasus.


First Paul O’Neill, now Andrew Marshall. Marshall has just blown the lid off another Bush administration can of worms—namely, its unwillingness to acknowledge and address the massive threat posed by global climate change.

Marshall is the founding director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, a quiet but powerful think tank within the Pentagon. In 2001, Marshall was tapped by George W. Bush to lead the Pentagon’s military review that largely defined the scope of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s “transformation” agenda. Marshall, whose ONA has served every president since Nixon, introduced the term "revolution in military affairs."

In an article published Jan. 26 in Fortune magazine, Marshall released the findings of an unclassified report—written by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of the Global Business Network—entitled "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security."

Global Warming Happens

Until now, the debate over climate change in the United States has focused on whether global warming exists and if so, whether it can be attributed to human activity. In their report, Schwartz and Randall close that debate and raise the stakes. They write that "the IPCC documents the threat of gradual climate change," deftly allowing Marshall to implicitly acknowledge that the IPCC findings have sufficiently established what the report calls "the scientifically proven link between CO2 and climate change" as well as the international consensus around climate change itself. But, while fully recognizing the reality of global warming, the report argues that the gradualist view "may be a dangerous act of self-deception." The real threat to national security is from global warming triggering an "abrupt climate change event."

Abrupt climate change is an increasingly probable and, the authors show, a historically precedented event in which global atmospheric warming triggers a rapid modification in global oceanic patterns. The report focuses on the threat receiving the most concern from researchers, which occurs when atmospheric warming releases enough fresh water into the North Atlantic to shut down the "thermohaline conveyor"—currents including the Gulf Stream—that move warm water north from the tropics. That, in turn would send much of the Northern Hemisphere into a deep freeze, disrupting energy, agriculture and fresh water supplies around the world.

This is no abstract hypothetical scenario. The Fortune article cites a presentation made by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute director Robert Gagosian who, at last year's World Economic Forum at Davos, "urged policymakers to consider the implications of possible abrupt climate change within two decades."

Thankfully, Marshall did just that. The ONA-commissioned report, using the well-established scenario-planning techniques developed at Shell's planning unit, generated a plausible future scenario in which the thermohaline conveyor collapses in 2010. What follows that oceanic shut-down sounds apocalyptic and yet the authors contend, is quite plausible.

...more..

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--------------
** 'US Climate Policy Bigger Threat to World than Terrorism'
by Steve Connor
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0109-02.htm
--------------------
**The Ice Age Cometh
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http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17711
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**Global Warming is Here Now, Say U.N. Delegates http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/121403G.shtml
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**The Four Degrees (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit): How Europe's Hottest Summer Shows Global Warming is Transforming Our
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**Earth Warming at Faster Pace, Say Top Science Group's Leaders
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**Global warming imperils ski slopes
Resorts need to move uphill as snow line continues retreat.
http://www.news-leader.com/today/1203-Globalwarm-232039.html
-----------------

[hatrack]

1. Important, yes.

But not nearly as critical to the health, safety and well-being of all Americans, especially impressionable pre-teens, as getting right to the bottom of who was responsible for the public broadcast of JANET JACKSON'S BARE TIT!!!!!!!!!!!

If I were in Congress, I'd call for special hearings!

[ramapo]

2. Can't just blame Bush on this one

The key words in the article are "address this issue".

There's a lot of lip service given climate change. Clinton gave it some. But for all the environmental awareness (Gore especially) there wasn't much "addressing this issue" that took place.

I'm not blaming Clinton. Nobody in leadership has had the guts (since Carter anyway) to stand up and say "This is a real problem and we'd better do something now" and actually expend the political capital to get something done.

People aren't ready to be inconvenienced yet

[girl gone mad]

6. And we're about to nominate..

another Clintonesque politician who probably won't be willing to put any political capital on the line for Global Warming.

[fleetus]

9. I think Carter was on to something.

Imagine how different the world would be if we had stayed on Carter's energy bandwagon!

:crazy: It's kind of mind boggling.

[G_j]

23. if Carter's energy policy hadn't been immediately derailed

by Reagan, we may well have avoided wars for oil, maybe even 9-11.

[G_j]

13. No doubt Clinton could have done more

but he also had his hands full just holding off the Republican full scale assault on the environment. I'm not a big Clinton fan in general, but he did do a fairly good job in fending off the unrelenting Republican attempts at undermining environmental protections. He could have done a whole lot worse.

[smiley_glad_hands]

3. That damn bear breast is gonna cause a catastrophe of

global proportions. We must bring an end to all bear breasts---and yes--- part of the plan shall include global warming to bring a net loss of "hard" nipples throughout the world.

[Cooley Hurd]

4. In "The Price of Loyalty..."

O'Neill talks about how Christie Todd Whitman was blindsided by the administration - after she was saying that the US was going to continue its committment to stop global warming (via Kyoto), they turned around and basically poo-pooed any notion the global warming was a proven problem (not because of sound scientific data, but because, according to O'Neill, it directly conflicted with Cheney's energy plans), and backed out of the Kyoto Accord. She was PISSED!

[hatrack]

8. Who cares if she was pissed?

If Ditzy Clod Witless had been angry enough to speak out on this issue, then maybe she wouldn't have stuck around as the all-purpose GOP greenwash brush and EPA punching bag for 1.5 years after Chimpy told the 140-odd nations supporting Kyoto to take a hike.

If she'd quit when the quitting was good, then maybe she could have had some positive impact. But I guess she felt that acting as an "environmentally friendly" mouthpiece, dishing out 18 months of soothing pablum about "balance" and "undoing the heavy-handed regulation of the past" was more than worth the price of her soul.

Fuck her.

[ramapo]

14. Whitman's a waste

She was surprised at Bush? How naive...

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. They are planning for weather catastrophes.. They KNOW

they are coming.

I nearly choked on my hot cocoa when I read this at Common Dreams:

"As Thom Hartmann told commondreams.org readers the other day, weather forecasters are giving us the biggest "Uncertain" in history. They say that there might, just might, be a catastrophic climate change in the next few decades. Global warming might suddenly trigger a massive global cooling.

They've heard this forecast in the Pentagon, too. So they are drawing up contingencies plans for the worst case scenario: a long era of deep freeze, raging storms, and massive drought that leaves billions of people struggling for the necessities of life.

This is no secret. Fortune magazine just published a summary of the report. What you can read there may seem perfectly sensible or perfectly insane. It all depends on your basic assumptions."

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0202-02.htm

[fleetus]

7. Leave it to the Pentagon to treat the symptom.

"If we continue living like this, there might be catastrophic climate change! The whole world will be fighting for precious few resources!"

Pentagon: "Okay, so, how do we make sure the U.S. wins that fight? Time to cut funds to the EPA and ramp up military spending!"

:wtf:

[G_j]

11. yes, it's absurd

The Pentagon wants exemptions from environmental regulations, a free pass to pollute at will.
And I can't even imagine the amount of fossil fuel they consume. Tree huggers they aren't..

[starroute]

10. Just how sudden and apocalyptic might it be?

I recently spotted an article suggesting that Oetzi, the Ice Man, wasn't just shot in the back but was trapped in the ice by an abrupt change of climate around 3200 BC.

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/quelcoro.htm


And that reminded me of questions I've seen raised about the mammoths they occasionally dig out of the permafrost. Basically, mammoths are so big that if you just stuck one in a freezer, the insides would rot before they froze. But the frozen mammoths they find are well-preserved all the way through. This suggests they were somehow flash-frozen by a sudden drastic plunge in temperatures.

Also, at least one of those frozen mammoths still had the remains of buttercups in its stomach, which it had been eating as its last meal. Buttercups don't match up very well with the theory that it fell into an ice crevasse and got stuck.

These sorts of questions mostly get raised over at the nutty fringe of catastrophism -- but I've never seen good answers to them from anybody on the respectable side.

[fleetus]

12. Here's another question about mammoths.

When are "they" going to bring a mammoth back to life? I heard because of the high quality frozen specimens, they are at the top of the list of extinct animals to be cloned.

But it's been awhile since I heard that and still no mammoths. What gives?

(maybe I'm digressing a bit here, but you made me think of it with the mammoth thing)

[Hammie]

15. Can I stop worrying about the Ice Age now?

Seriously, in the 70's is was the consensus of the scientists that we were on the verge of another ice age. The earth was clearly getting colder and a global disaster of "chilling" proportions was just around the corner.

Fast forward a couple decades and now everyone is convinced that the earth is getting warmer and that a global disaster is just around the corner.

I think a little skepticism is in order. You all realize that these alarmist groups aren't disinterested parties. Their power and funding grow in proportion to how freaked out they can make you. Like all chicken littles, there is a kernel of truth, but it is never as bad as they say.

Since there is "historical precedent" for "sudden climate change" the odds are, if/when it happens, that we didn't cause it and we can't stop it.

[G_j]

16. please read the related links

then tell us that!

on edit, here's just one:

**Earth Warming at Faster Pace, Say Top Science Group's Leaders
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1218-01.htm
----------------
The statement came from the 28-member council of the American Geophysical Union, whose 41,000 members include more than 10,000 experts on the planet's atmosphere and changing climate.
----------------
these folks are not tinfoil hatters by a long shot..

[peace4all]

17. alarmist, chicken littles?

amazing how the overwhelming majority of scientists are alarmist-chicken littles isn't it? Are you from Georgia by any chance? :shrug:

[Hammie]

18. Overwhelming Majority? BFD!

Shall we make a list of what the overwhelming majority of scientists have thought?

We are entering an ice age.

Stress and diet are responsible for ulcers.

Eggs give you high cholesterol.

Healthy diets have high levels of carbohydrate.

We would all be starving by now due to population growth.

DDT is perfectly safe.

DDT is an environmental disaster.

That is just off the top of my head. I'm sure the list goes on and on.

Democracy is fine for deciding social issues, but not for scientific ones.

I learned along time ago to judge everyones motivations (especially those who claim to be looking out for me) by how they get paid. When you model peoples behavior on their self interest, alot of apparent inconsistencies just disappear. So yeah, alarmist fits them to a T. Generating alarm is how they get paid. If you somehow think that these scientists are above petty financial concerns, then you don't know jack about science. Science takes money, lots of money. There isn't enough money for all the scientists that want it. Therefore they have a vested interest in SELLING the importance of their particular projects. Just like in politics it is done by identifying (or creating) some BIG PROBLEM that needs FIXING. The other thing you need to know is they've got this peer review thing. If someone starts writing papers that threaten conventional wisdom (ie. the gravy train) he gets shut down faster than an Al Sharpton thread on DU. Believe what you want but I would hold off on buying any banana farms in Wisconsin if I were you.

[G_j]

19. Sure

your well researched fact filled rebuttal to the the myriad of links I provided sways me. NOT

BTW, speaking of monied interests, about the only scientists left who dispute this work for the oil companies.

[WEagle]

20. of course science isn't infallible!

you mention some things science had wrong, but left out all the things they got right. Seems to me they also just landed on Mars.

In the case of climate, it doesn't take an Einstein to realize human activity has effected it.

[hatrack]

21. Gosh, Hammie, you convinced me!

It's ALL a conspiracy!

Science is nothing but a gigantic CON JOB designed to do nothing but separate us from our money and generate hysterical fear!!!!!!

Oh, and to discover antibiotics, antiseptics and disinfectants and the germ theory of disease, discover and apply electricity and magnetism, design mathematical systems that describe the movements of the planets and the births and deaths of stars, develop metallurgy, evolutionary biology, general and specific relativity, powered flight, systematic plant breeding and plant genetics, food preservation, the transistor, the vacuum tube, the computer and manned space flight.

But other that that, it's ALL a CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[G_j]

22. another story: Shrinking Polar Bears

http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?articleId=880&issueId=66&passthrough=newsletter

The Incredible Shrinking Polar Bears
By Jim Morrison

In Canada’s Hudson Bay, a long-term study confirms they are losing weight and bearing fewer cubs as global warming melts away their icy habitat. Is this a preview of what other populations of polar bears will soon be facing?