How Climate Change Is Attacking The U.S. Military

Climate Change Already Hampers U.S. Military Sites Around the World, Government Study Finds; The U.S. military is neglecting to plan for climate change-related risks facing hundreds of overseas facilities, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office.

David Leestma, December 18, 2017 (EcoWatch)

“…The Defense Department has identified climate change and its effects as threats to facilities, but a gap remains between determining threats and implementing solutions…[In addition to failing to plan for and incorporate climate change's risks into project designs,] many facilities are not consistently tracking costs incurred by extreme weather [according to Climate Change Adaptation; DOD Needs to Better Incorporate Adaptation into Planning and Collaboration at Overseas Installations]…Requested by the Democrats in the Senate, the study by GAO—a nonpartisan oversight agency—visited 45 military installations around the world. Only one-third of these facilities had integrated climate change adaptation into their planning…[GAO recommended systematically tracking] costs associated with climate impacts…[re-administering] its vulnerability assessment survey to include all relevant sites…[integrating] climate change adaptation into relevant standards; and…[including] climate change adaptation in host-nation agreements…[Lucian Niemeyer, the Trump-nominated assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment] pushed back against some of the study's assertions and claimed that blaming infrastructure damage on climate change is [speculative]…” click here for more

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