US National Security and Climate Change

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/04/u-s-military-combats-climate-change/ 

2010 Defense Department review cut through political rhetoric and stated that climate change and energy security are “prominent military vulnerabilities”. Climate change in particular is an “accelerant of instability and conflict,” the report noted.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-military-forges-ahead-with-plans-to-combat-climate-change

Connecting the military's fossil-fuel and overall energy use with risks to our national security hasn't been easy in this political environment, especially with the presidential election looming. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly questioned and criticized the Armed Forces' new-energy strategies, portraying initiatives as political favors to clean-energy businesses.  But current and retired military leaders insist the policies are essential. The efforts protect soldiers and help them carry out missions. They also help curb climate change and its potential to intensify military conflicts.

So - arguments arise from this with which to sway conservatives. (Backward ran the sentences until the head reeled!)

Don't you want to protect Canada's interests?   Do you want the Americans and their military to be ahead of  us  - again?  Why isn't the Right Honorable Stephen Harper doing something to protect Canada's long term interests by reducing our carbon emissions when the US military is? The US military isn't exactly a group of pinkos, yah know! 

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.