American military is fighting a new enemy, it’s called climate change
WASHINGTON: The US defence department has issued a dire report on how climate change could affect the nation’s armed forces and security, warning that rising seas could inundate coastal bases and drought-fuelled wildfires could endanger those that are inland.
The 22-page assessment delivered to Congress on Thursday says about twothirds of 79 mission-essential military installations in the US that were reviewed are vulnerable now or in the future to flooding and more than half are at risk from drought. About half also are at risk from wildfires, including the threat of mudslides and erosion from rains after the blazes.
“The effects of a changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to defence department missions, operational plans and installations,” defence department spokeswoman Heather Babb said Friday in an email.
The report contradicts the view of US President Donald Trump, who has rejected the scientific consensus that climate change is real and manmade. The report’s premise echoes the findings of the National Climate Assessment, written by 13 federal agencies and released in November. It concluded that the effects of global warming are accelerating and will cause widespread disruption.
Trump rejected those findings. “I don’t believe it,” he said at the time.
The new report, which was mandated by Congress, describes widespread impacts, dispersed across the US, with more coastal flooding along the East coast and Hawaii.
US military facilities are already encountering some of the effects, the Pentagon says, noting that Joint Base Langley-eustis in Virginia has experienced 14 inches of sealevel rise since 1930. And Navy Base Coronado in California already is subject to flooding during tropical storms.
In the Washington area, several defence department sites - including Joint Base Andrews, home of Air Force One - are experiencing drought conditions that have been severe in the past 16 years, the report says. Those conditions can lead to ruptured utility lines and cracked roads, the Pentagon warns, as moisture disappears from soil.
The defence department stresses that it is working with nations around the world “to understand and plan for future potential mission impacts” from climate change.