President Obama @ Coast Guard Academy; The Cognitive Dissonance Elephant In The Crowd
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The president presented a long and familiar litany of the damage climate change will do and is already doing around the world. That includes impacts to military bases, particularly ports, extreme weather, droughts leading to shortages of food and water, forced migration and geopolitical conflicts that contribute to extremism like that of Boko Haram in Nigeria. "All of which," he said, "is why the Pentagon calls climate change a 'threat multiplier.'"
Obama also detailed some of the good things the administration has been doing about climate change, or trying to do in the face of stubborn, malignant opposition. That includes new emissions controls on power plants, mandating more efficient vehicles and housing, constant discussion of climate change in diplomatic meetings and expansion of renewable energy sources. He also spoke to advances in the efficiency of Coast Guard vessels and use of solar and wind at military bases, the use of biofuels with the "green fleet," and repeatedly, the cadets role in dealing with climate change.
He spoke of how tough are the politics of adopting farsighted climate change policies. Without naming names, he challenged the foes of those policies by pointing out how their opposition undermines military preparedness: "Denying it, or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security. It undermines the readiness of our forces."
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As Admiral Zukunft already mentioned, climate change means Arctic sea ice is vanishing faster than ever. By the middle of this century, Arctic summers could be essentially ice free. We’re witnessing the birth of a new ocean—new sea lanes, more shipping, more exploration, more competition for the vast natural resources below. I was proud to nominate your last commandant, Admiral Papp, as our special representative for the Arctic. And as the U.S. chairs the Arctic Council this year, I’m committed to advancing our interests in this critical region because we have to be ready in the Arctic, as well.
There should have been, but wasn't, a hint of irony in the president's mention of competing for those "vast natural resources" in an area where climate change is rapidly showing what happens when the byproducts of competing for those resources are injected into the atmosphere. It's in the interests of the U.S. to direct attention toward doing everything in the nation's power reduce the use of fossil fuels. That should include not exploiting those resources lying beneath the Arctic seabed. Instead, the administration just approved drilling there by Royal Dutch Shell. Okaying the extraction and burning of more Arctic hydrocarbons just days before issuing these cogent climate-change warnings to the cadets weakened the president's entire speech.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/20/1386321/-Climate-change-takes-up-half-of-Obama-s-commencement-address-to-Coast-Guard-graduating-class
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