Pentagon tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us

The Observer (UK) ^ | Sunday February 22, 2004 | Mark Townsend and Paul Harris

[Jakenuts]

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.

Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.

One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.

Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.

Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.

Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'

Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.

[old3030]

I agree completely that ice melting off of the continents or the land mass of Greenland would add somewhat to the volume of water in the oceans. But there is already a lot of ice in the water. I have no idea what the actual volume is and whether or not one would offset the other.

Weren't portions of Greenland supposed to have been more temperate about a thousand years ago?

[tractorman]

I think I read the same article in The Weekly World News.

[LN2Campy]

It sounds odd, but a warming of the earth's climate overall COULD result in Northern Europe becoming much colder--the reason being that the massive melting of polar and Greenlandic glaciers would pour a lot of cold water into the Atlantic, resulting in a shift/weakening of the Gulf Stream, thus resuting in colder weather for Britain, Northwestern Europe and Iceland.

That being said, this article is an offensive misrepresentation of what was simply a disaster scenario projection and NOT a climatological study.

[LN2Campy]

Yes, the Norse settled Greenland around that time and were able to graze cattle and sheep, and even raise some cereal crops. Iceland was also much warmer then (and actually forested), and grapes were being grown throughout Britain.

The cooling of the climate from about 1300 until 1700 or so (the "little ice age") is credited with the extinguishing of the Greenland Norse.

All goes to show the wide, normal and natural variations of climate throughout history.

[Jakenuts]

Hmmm... dunno. I suspect all these cycles have happened a number of times and that on our small time-scale it looks like a huge deal, but in the earths time-scale it is like watching the tide at the beach. I'm sad to hear that cold is the likely outcome of all this though as I've always considered Global Warming's best attribute that it would get warmer around here. Quite enough of winter...

[justshutupandtakeit]

Environmentalism is ALREADY a national security threat. Our military is constrained from training by "endangered species' habitat" by "wetlands destruction" and other issues.

The question the believers in global warming can never answer is "Who decides WHAT the temperature of the world SHOULD be?" And "How do you deal with the 95+% of greenhouse gases not generated by Man?"

PS that article is all over the lot and is totally unconvincing.

[bondjamesbond]

What a surprise! The Pentagon does a study based on some scenario or another and concludes that the future will be very unstable, so it is critical that we have a lot more bombs, guns, and SDI. Isn't that their answer to every question?

Not that it isn't the right answer from time to time, mind you...

[bondjamesbond]

If the glacier is resting on land, then any melting would definitely add to the water in the seas and would account for sea-level rising, no?

Do not assume that the Earth's crust is rigid. The Earth's crust is more like the crust on top of a pie than a stone sphere. If the ice cap melts off of Greenland, then that land mass will "float" higher on the visco-elastic magma and the seas will fall slightly. I'm not saying it will all come out in the wash, but it's not like pushing water around on your kitchen counter, either...