I blog about environmental and social justice issues because I am very concerned about the health of the interdependent web of life of which we are a part.

Melting Arctic ice.......beautiful and frightening!

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Monday, February 1, 2010

Climate Change Deniers Please Take Note

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/31/pentagon-ranks-global-warming-destabilising-force
The Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilising force, adding fuel to conflict and putting US troops at risk around the world, in a major strategy review to be presented to Congress tomorrow. The Pentagon, in acknowledging the threat of global warming, will now have to factor climate change into war game exercises and long-term security assessments of badly affected regions such as the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. But the navy was already alive to the potential threat, with melting sea ice in the Arctic opening up a new security province. The changing chemistry of the oceans, because of global warming, is also playing havoc with submarine sonar, a report last year from the CNAS warned.
US soldiers and marines, meanwhile, were getting a hard lesson in the dangers of energy insecurity on the battlefield, where attacks on supply convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq inflicted heavy casualties.

But climate change isn't a problem .  Yet, as Gwynne Dyer pointed out in Climate Wars, militaries around the world are factoring global warming into their analyses and planning processes.  Insurance companies are very concerned about ever increasing payouts, and telecom and oil companies see the Arctic ice melt as a business opportunity.  

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