Military sees complications from climate change

Veterans Day has come again, a time to reflect on past and ongoing conflicts. I have served in the infantry in Korea and two tours in Vietnam. Let’s look at the future. Since the U.S. destabilized the Middle East by waging perpetual war in Afghanistan (with no end in sight) and invading Iraq, the U.S. has and will continue to expend trillions of dollars and lose thousands of lives in both countries. One contributor to this is climate change. The conflict in Syria and the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria arguably was initiated by a terrible drought, probably exacerbated by climate change.

What is the military’s take on this, in the face of President Trump’s astoundingly ignorant assertion that climate change is a “Chinese hoax”? The Military Advisory Board, composed of general officers from the armed forces, concluded that climate change is occurring and poses serious threats to our national security (CNA Corp., 2007, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change”). The military continues to make prudent changes to adapt to climate change, no matter what ignorant Trump appointees say. Among the threats are conflicts over increasingly scarce resources such as water and food and tens of millions of people fleeing destabilized societies (the UN estimates there are record numbers now; 65.6 million people forcibly displaced).

A summary of studies of conflict found broad agreement that “Deviations from normal precipitation and mild temperatures systematically increase the risk of conflict, often substantially” (Hsiang, Burke and Miguel, 2013, Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1235367). And, let there be no mistake, climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that humans are responsible for current climate change through the addition of fossil fuel-generated greenhouse gases added to our atmosphere, despite the misinformation you may hear from the fossil fuel industry and Fox “News.”