PACOM not waiting on politics to plan for climate change challenges

Stars and Stripes ^ | August 9, 2014 | By Wyatt Olson

[Oldeconomybuyer]

FORT SHAFTER, Hawaii. — As Congress remains gridlocked on more than 200 bills related to climate change, U.S. Pacific Command is forging strategies with partner nations in the region to mitigate the security effects of global warming.

“You can’t deny the fact that there are military consequences going on as a result of storms,” said Brig. Gen. Mark McLeod, who headed PACOM’s Logistics, Engineering and Security Cooperation directorate for two years until transferring to the Pentagon this summer.

“Seventy percent of the bad storms that happen in the world are in the Pacific,” he said. “Call it climate change, call it the big blue rabbit, I don’t give a hoot what you call it — the military has to respond to those kinds of things.”

Indeed, despite claims by some that global warming is a myth, there’s growing accord among analysts and military thinkers around the world that the repercussions of climate change will require the same application of strategy the military would employ when grappling with any foe.

To keep such efforts on track, PACOM last fall began incorporating an environmental strategy into all its planning, programs and exercises, he said.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Reminds me of Morton Thiokol, under pressure for environmentalists about the chemical make up of the O-seal changed the formula to be environmentally friendly. That worked out well.

The unintended consequences of the left always result in something worse than if they left it alone.

[TADSLOS]

... the military has to respond to those kinds of things.”

Good boy, General. Your 2nd star is in the mail.

[moovova]

““You can’t deny the fact that there are military consequences going on as a result of storms,” said Brig. Gen. Mark McLeod,...”

I can’t believe a soldier said this.

[elpadre]

“..You can’t deny the fact that there are military consequences going on as a result of storms...”

Correct. But General, severe storm activity in the Pacific is not new. It has been going on for hundreds of years, there is nothing new, there is no change!!

I suspect the General is bucking for another star and one of those prestigious jobs in WDC.

[stanne]

I’ve heard it from conservatives as well as libs from the east coast. They get a hurricane and that’s it, the world is under siege from ma made climate change.

Hawaii, where he is, is getting hit with two hurricanes back to back. that it is unusual is ‘proof’ that it’s global warming.

Forget that I and my sister are names after devastating hurricanes.

or that they’ve been going on for as long as weather has been recorded, and back to the beginning of the world, one would imagine.

This general is making unilateral decisions re PACOM based probably on his wife’s rants about storm activity

they should look at a map. Hawaii is a place in the middle of the Pacific ocean