Beam Me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 02/12/2010 8:27:04 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review report gives unprecedented attention to the issue of climate change. Previous QDR reports did not identify climate change, global warming, or other environmental issues as major concerns for U.S. security. The 2010 QDR, by contrast, dedicates three of its 105 pages (plus executive summary) to the issue, highlighting it (along with energy) in a section dedicated to its impact on the "future security environment."
All in all, the report mentions "climate change" 19 times. China is mentioned only eleven times, Iran five times, Russia four times, and North Korea three times. It seems that the Obama administration views climate change as a major national-security concern. The QDR sees the potential consequences of global warming — retreating glaciers, extreme weather, rising sea levels and temperatures, food security and water scarcity, disease — as potential contributors to instability and conflict.
This approach leads to recommendations that limit the flexibility of the military by, for example, limiting its options regarding the use of energy. While the QDR asserts that such steps will not undermine the military’s ability to perform its missions, it is likely they will. This is like telling the fire department to cut down on hydrant use in order to conserve water.
The consequences of climate change asserted in the QDR are based on evidence and conclusions from the U.S. Global Change Research Program report. This should raise questions, because that report, particularly its chapter on global climate change, draws heavily on analysis and evidence provided in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Recent months have seen the IPCC come under increasing criticism for relying on non-peer-reviewed articles and documents that do not accurately reflect the state of scientific knowledge on the issues.
For instance, the link between extreme weather and global warming is debatable. Yet the IPCC asserted such a relationship as fact, based on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific review. A recent story by the (U.K.) Times Online revealed that the IPCC "ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link [was] too weak" and that the "report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough."
As numerous news outlets have reported, the IPCC itself has been forced to disavow its claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 and acknowledge that it had no scientific basis. The debate over the impact of climate change on disease is also far from settled, yet the IPCC (and the QDR) treats increased spread of disease from climate change as a foregone conclusion.
Just this past weekend, the Times Online reported that Prof. Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC's climate-impacts team, could find nothing in the IPCC report to support its claim that "global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change." The QDR followed the IPCC on this error, too, claiming that climate change will impact food security.
These problems come on top of the Climategate e-mails, which revealed that scientists contributing to the IPCC went to enormous efforts to manipulate data to support their conclusions and silence and denigrate critics who questioned their work or sought access to their data.
All of this seems to be a very shaky foundation upon which to reshape America's defense strategy. In its oversight role, Congress should challenge the administration’s inclusion of climate change as a defense priority.
NPR rehash of NRO QDR
ping.
Just how the {expletive} is a fraudulent issue such as “climate change” a consideration in a National Security report? We’re in the middle of two wars, Iran and North Korea are developing ballistic missile technology. NK has already detonated a primitive nuke, Iran is enriching Uranium like it’s going out of style... And obama has co-opted the National Security agencies to try to bolster the utter fraud that is global warming and climate change? obama, you’re an idiot and you are going to get a lot of Americans killed. It will all be on your head you sob, don’t you dare try to blame former President Bush when it happens.
Obana’s fantasy world where only unicorn’s and peaceful Muslims roam the land.
I wonder what weapons are needed to fight the mythical global warming hoax?
The list, ping
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