Global Warming Means Defense Build Up

Filed Under defense, global climate change, global warming

Prediction: The threat of global warming will require the build up of America’s defenses if we are to protect ourselves from the predicted effects of global climate change.

The government is studying the global warming issue with an eye toward its impact on future wars and other national security concerns.

Writes the Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender:

The bipartisan proposal, which its sponsors expect to pass the Congress with wide support, calls for the director of national intelligence to conduct the first-ever “national intelligence estimate” on global warming.

The effort would include pinpointing the regions at highest risk of humanitarian suffering and assessing the likelihood of wars erupting over diminishing water and other resources.

The measure also would order the Pentagon to undertake a series of war games to determine how global climate change could affect US security, including “direct physical threats to the United States posed by extreme weather events such as hurricanes.”

Next spring, a national intelligence estimate will be issued detailing what the next president will need to do to combat the threats presented by global warming and all of the horrible things that could happen if we don’t prepare ourselves. Of course, part of our preparations will mean beefing up national defense because it is expected that many of the critical events in global warming will take place in many areas of strategic importance to the United States.

Because global warming will be seen as a national security threat, look for recommendations for increased defense spending. That could be a good thing for local industries, especially for Northwest Indiana’s steel mills and Chicago’s Boeing.

Predicts Bill Becker, Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project:

I predict that concern about global warming will get even more intense next spring. The National Intelligence Council will issue a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that details the security implications of climate change. It will look ahead 30 years to address the safety of people and property in the United States, the possibility of worldwide humanitarian crises that require military response, the impact on the U.S. military at a time it already is stretched thin, the likely impacts of extreme weather and other factors. The NIE will start with the assumption that the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on outdated science and that climate problems will be larger and will occur sooner than the IPCC has predicted.

Just as we’ve seen how going green can be good for Northwest Indiana, combating the effects of global climate change will ultimately be good for the defense department and various defense contractors including Northwest Indiana’s businesses.

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