The Climate Change Security Risk

Climate change poses security risks, according to decades of intelligence reports Intelligence analysts have agreed since the late 80s that climate change poses serious security risks

Dena Nuccitelli, April 8, 2019 (Yale Climate Connections)

“A series of authoritative governmental and nongovernmental analyses over more than three decades lays a strong foundation for concern over climate change implications for national security…[The January 2019 annual ‘Worldwide Threat Assessment’ found] ‘climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources such as food and water. These impacts are already occurring, and the scope, scale, and intensity of these impacts are projected to increase over time.’ That report from National Intelligence Director Daniel R. Coats, a former U.S. Republican senator from Indiana, was just the most recent in a long string of analyses…clearly are at odds with the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine and reverse federal climate policies…

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“…[A recent review of more than 100 national security documents addressing climate change assessed] decades of official national security strategy documents prepared to guide Democratic and Republican administrations on national defense priorities and military strategy. Those analyses began warning about threats to U.S. national security from environmental factors in the late 1980s, and in 1990, a U.S. Naval War College Report warned of potential climate change hazards…President George H.W. Bush’s national security strategy in August 1991 acknowledged climate change as a security issue…[Reports from military leaders in 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2014 affirmed the finding and the 2019 Department of Defense report documented] vulnerabilities of 79 military installations to events exacerbated by climate change impacts such as floods, droughts, and wildfires…” click here for more

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