Collide-a-scape

Green the Pentagon’s mighty military apparatus and everyone else will follow.

At least that’s the WSJ’s Keith Johnson’s useful interpretation of the latest CNA report, entitled, “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security.” Johnson’s historical perspective is instructive and makes me think that the clarion call issued on Monday by a high-voltage group of retired military officers might echo longer than I indicated here.

UPDATE: [Here are some stories on the CNA report from BusinessWeek,  DefenseNews, and ClimateWire. Additionally, the DOD Energy Blog weighs in, and so does The New Security Beat.]

Nice timing by CNA, issuing this new report today by its Military Advisory Board, entitled, “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and Risks to National Security.”

Climate change is tagged as a big national security concern, as it was in CNA’s landmark 2007 report. There was a press reception at Newseum this morning, so there’s bound to be media coverage later on and tomorrow, which will be a welcome diversion from the Waxman-Markey lulapalooza.

But can CNA sustain the buzz beyond the 24-48 hour news cycle? If climate change should be regarded as a true military concnern, then why aren’t these guys out more on the climate politics and policy front-lines? That’s where the war is being fought.

I’ve just started reading the new report, but a quick scan delivered up these two notable quotes:

From retired Air Force General Chuck Wald:

An unstable climate, which is what we’re creating now with global warming, will make for unstable civilizations.   It will involve more surprises.  It will involve more people needing to move or make huge changes in their lives.  It pushes us into a period of non-linear change. That is hugely destabilizing.

From former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan:

There is a relationship between the major challenges we’re facing. Energy, security, economics, climate change—these things are connected. And the extent to which these things really do affect one another is becoming more apparent.

Why aren’t these guys on Fox News, CNN and Jon Stewart?  Shouldn’t they be regulars at Capitol Hill? On a college circuit tour? Why can’t one of them be blogging for Foreign Policy Magazine? Let’s go guys, get engaged every day if you want to make a difference.

It’s not news that some sectors (and top brass) in the U.S. military are taking environmental issues seriously.

But what’s news to me is that a legendary Vietnamese war general–someone who played an instrumental role in defeating France and then the U.S.– has suddenly gone green. According to this Grist story, Gen.Vo Nguyen Giap is opposed to a chinese mining project in Vietnam’s central highlands. Giap, who is 97, says:

The exploitation will cause serious consequences on the environment, society and national defense.

I can imagine what the ecological and social concerns might be, but it’s not clear from the Grist story what the national security concern is.

There is growing belief within U.S. military and foreign policy circles that global climate change could potentially trigger widespread geopolitical instability. So I get that national security connection. But why would a Vietnemese general contend that mining in his country poses a threat to its national defense?

Building on recent concerns, the U.S. Navy is mulling climate change a lot lately. (H/T, The New Security Beat.)

Memo to Romm and other catastrophe-mongers: instead of conflating every major flood or wildfire with global warming, which is not credibly supported by science, why not talk more about the increasing apprehension within the U.S. military and the foreign policy establishment? You’d be on solid ground there.

Additionally, the seriousness they take climate change with respect to national security (and their scenarios) would be a lot harder to dismiss as fear-mongering by the Moranos of the world.

In recent years, the U.S. intelligence community has sounded its own alarms about global warming (see here and here), which I’m surprised climate advocates don’t trumpet more often.

Instead of pouncing on every new catastrophic wildfire or drought as prima-facie evidence that doomsday is right around the corner, (which is not supported by science), why not talk more about the links between environmental issues and national security (which a growing cadre of foreign policy experts are becoming convinced of)?

If Thomas Friedman, in yesterday’s op-ed column, had plugged this blog–which regularly frames climate change in a geopolitical context– instead of whacking a highly respected science journalist (and colleague) by plugging this one, the climate change debate would gain a greater bipartisan hearing–and probably be an easier sell.

A precursor to this frame was in evidence a few years back, when military hawks started coalescing around the catchy (yet unrealistic) notion of “energy independence,” which I wrote about here.

Now I’m not suggesting that the climate change/national security nexus is a slam dunk. Connecting environmentally-related problems–be they from global warming or overpopulation–to socio/political upheaval is as dicey as connecting yesterday’s wildfires to the buildup of man-made greenhouse gases.

It’s not easy separating out political, economic,  ecological and climatic factors in the world’s geopolitical hotspots.

That said, for a perspective that deserves greater attention in climate change circles, readers should check out this post and then glance around The New Security Beat, the indispensable blog run by the Environmental Change and Security Program,  a division of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.