Guess who’s asking the hard questions on climate science and policy. The U.S. military and geopolitical/security specialists. Earlier this week, an array of of defense, national security and climate experts took part in a conference hosted by the Scripps Oceanography Center for Environment and National Security. This was the symposium agenda and here’s the opener…Continue Reading…
One of the catch-phrases President Obama didn’t use in his much parsed Oval Office speech on Tuesday was energy security. He did, however, make a glancing, split-second reference when discussing the costs associated with a transition from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy (emphasis added): And there are some who believe that we can’t…Continue Reading…
The issue of climate security, which a number of experts discussed on this thread, is gaining prominence in U.S. policy and political circles. But as I wrote in this story last November, “a sense of urgency has been building in military and intelligence circles around the world” too. Climate security has also leaped to the…Continue Reading…
UPDATE: Be sure to check out the comment thread, where a number of top environmental security experts weigh in. I bet you you think this is going to be a continuation of last week’s discussion. Nah. This week, I’ll be talking to scholars and experts who study the linkages between climate change, energy, and security….Continue Reading…
Over the last year, Thomas Friedman has frequently promoted China’s green face to the world. Perhaps it’s time the esteemed NYT columnist and foreign policy specialist began paying attention to the other China, the one that’s been on a fossil fuel buying spree the past few years. There’s even a nifty climate change angle for…Continue Reading…
Experts who are grappling honestly with the national security/climate change nexus will wince when they see this post by the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson. It’s the kind of blatant political exploitation of recent headlines that some scholars warned about when the climate security meme was picked up prominently by mainstream media last summer. Johnson, doing…Continue Reading…
Now this initiative bears watching, because it gets beyond the fuzzy climate change cause-and-effect rhetoric. If adaptation is going to be done right in Africa–or anywhere–then this approach strikes me as a really smart way to go about it: “It is not enough to say that Ethiopia is vulnerable,” says Joshua Busby, an assistant professor…Continue Reading…
Via the International Institute for Strategic Studies, this is a pretty interesting take on the recent Bin Laden/climate change episode: Late last week, Osama Bin Laden came out with a new audiotape accusing the US for causing climate change. He says: “Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury – the phenomenon is…Continue Reading…
Looks like Marc Morano is steering clear of the U.S. military’s acceptance of climate change. You won’t find any big, bold headlines on Climate Depot about how the Pentagon is planning for a warmer world: Climate change will affect DoD in two broad ways. First, climate change will shape the operating environment, roles, and missions…Continue Reading…
During George W. Bush’s two terms, environmentalists and archaeologists complained (with justification) that the oil & gas industry was allowed to run roughshod over Western public lands. I wrote a bunch about this for numerous magazines, from Audubon and Mother Jones to High Country News and Archaeology. The same question arose in all these stories:…Continue Reading…