How the Pentagon Thinks About the Climate Crisis
There is a strange contradiction at the heart of our federal government and its response to climate change. While most of Washington has been woefully neglectful of the crisis or outright denying its existence, what is arguably our most conservative institution — the U.S. military — has begun taking the crisis very seriously. GOP legislators might make nonsensical statements about how “sea level rise” is a “left-wing term,” but the Pentagon is well aware of the dangers that climate change — which it refers to as a ‘threat multiplier’ — poses for its installations and mission. After all, you “can’t fight a war unless you’ve got a place to leave from,” noted General Gerald Galloway, formerly of the Army Corps of Engineers. As many as 46 U.S. military bases were recently deemed threatened by the heightened risk of flood, drought, and wildfire brought on by climate change.
Diving into the armed forces’ response to the climate crisis, Michael T. Klare “found they had some very interesting things to say about it.” Klare, 76, recently retired from Hampshire College, where he was the Five College Professor Emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies. (“Well, now I work even harder,” he laughs.) The author of 15 previous books and the defense correspondent for The Nation, Klare spoke with Rolling Stone about his forthcoming release, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, which is due out this November from book publisher Metropolitan. The book synthesizes the latest government papers, statements and presentations by officials, along with personal interviews, to give the most up-to-date perspective on climate as viewed through the lens of those tasked with defending America from threats of all types.
Klare’s project began because he was “studying the intersections of climate change, resource scarcity, and conflict” and realized that the military’s take on global warming was a “vision of climate change that is not a part of the public discussion.” While environmentalists point out the ecological issues involved, like habitat destruction and mass extinctions, “the military focuses on the threat to human institutions and communities,” he says. The armed forces “see the greatest threats from climate change being state collapse and mass migrations that are going to create chaos around the world” and lead to a lot of dangerous tasks that “they would prefer not to have to undertake.”
The military began making some reforms to address climate change under the Obama administration, utilizing cleaner technologies through the Army’s Operation Dynamo, the Marines’ Experimental Forward Operating Base, and the Navy’s Great Green Fleet. Obama had put through an executive order in 2013 requiring all parts of the federal government to prepare for climate change, but Trump rescinded it in 2017. The various military branches continue to build toward ‘net zero‘ installations and the ability of each base to be self-reliant. “At some point, [military] officers who view national security as a sacred obligation will have no choice but to confront those who persist in climate denial,” writes Klare.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-the-pentagon-thinks-about-the-climate-crisis-887832/
