Remember This, "Now The Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us"? --- Here's An Update

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
The Observer, Sunday February 22 2004 01.33 GMT

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver

Global Warming and Global Security

Posted by Connor

Under: Climate Change .
AUGUST 16 2010

Way back in 2004 the Defense Department came out with a “http://grist.org/pdf/AbruptClimateChange2003.pdf">think piece” (PDF document) warning of dire geopolitical consequences of the effects of climate change. At the time the report’s conclusions, that global climate change was real and most likely caused by humans, was utterly at odds with the Bush administration’s line on the issue and the report was suppressed, gaining only a bit of coverage in the actual liberal media.

Facts being stubborn things, those conclusions could not be ignored forever and as more mature hands took charge, climate change was officially included as a security threat in the http://www.defense.gov/QDR/">2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. The QDR concludes that changing weather patterns “may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.”


Aerial view of flooding in Pakistan's Nowshera district. (AFP via news.com.au)

Whether the cause is global warming or not, more weather-driven disruptions are occurring, such as http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russian_wildfires.html">drought-driven wildfires in Russia and a recent drought in Mexico that http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-may-mean-more-mexican-immigration">may add millions to the numbers seeking to immigrate to the US.

Despite the localized chilly weather last winter, 2010 is going to be the hottest year ever all over the world. Whether one wants to believe in global warming or not and whether one thinks that it is driven by human activity or not is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Sure, a stalwart skeptic might say, “This is just a bad year.” Or, “Globalized media just means that we hear about all the little things where before they might not have made the news.”


Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City was flooded out in 2008 and has been condemned.
(Photo: Lisa Peperkorn)

Mmkay. But what happens if it happens again next year and the next? This is the third year in a row we have had major flooding on several Iowa rivers. Places where there were once parks, housing and commercial development on the banks of the Raccoon River in Des Moines and the Iowa River in Iowa City are now basically unusable flood plains. The facts on the ground are getting pretty hard to ignore.


From: http://cman.cx/blog/index.php/2010/08/16/global-warming-and-global-security/

Artificial meat? Food for thought by 2050

Leading scientists say meat grown in vats may be necessary to feed 9 billion people expected to be alive by middle of century

John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian, Monday August 16 2010

Artificial meat grown in vats may be needed if the 9 billion people expected to be alive in 2050 are to be adequately fed without destroying the earth, some of the world's leading scientists report today.

But a major academic assessment of future global food supplies, led by John Beddington, the UK government chief scientist, suggests that even with new technologies such as genetic modification and nanotechnology, hundreds of millions of people may still go hungry owing to a combination of climate change, water shortages and increasing food consumption.

In a set of 21 papers published by the Royal Society, the scientists from many disciplines and countries say that little more land is available for food production, but add that the challenge of increasing global food supplies by as much as 70% in the next 40 years is not insurmountable.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/16/artificial-meat-food-royal-society
The 21 papers are available here: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/current

In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming

By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: August 14, 2010

The floods battered New England, then Nashville, then Arkansas, then Oklahoma — and were followed by a deluge in Pakistan that has upended the lives of 20 million people.

The summer’s heat waves baked the eastern United States, parts of Africa and eastern Asia, and above all Russia, which lost millions of acres of wheat and thousands of lives in a drought worse than any other in the historical record.

Seemingly disconnected, these far-flung disasters are reviving the question of whether global warming is causing more weather extremes.

The collective answer of the scientific community can be boiled down to a single word: probably.

“The climate is changing,” said Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “Extreme events are occurring with greater frequency, and in many cases with greater intensity.”

Full original article with photos and embedded links: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/science/earth/15climate.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

Print edition you can just cut the top off: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/science/earth/15climate.html?pagewanted=print

Will this summer of extremes be a wake-up call?
This decade has been marked by a number of weather extremes – which show how vulnerable our societies are

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/2010-could-be-warmest-year-ever">2010 could be among warmest years recorded by man

Stefan Rahmstorf
Monday August 16 2010




This summer has been one of weather-related extremes in Russia, Pakistan, China, Europe, the Arctic – you name it. But does this have anything to do with global warming, and are human emissions to blame? While it cannot be scientifically proven (or disproven, for that matter) that global warming caused any particular extreme event, we can say that global warming very likely makes many kinds of extreme weather both more frequent and more severe.

For weeks, central Russia has been in the grips of its worst-ever heatwave, which has caused probably thousands of fatalities. As a result of drought and heat, more than 500 wildfires have raged out of control, smothering Moscow in smoke and threatening several nuclear facilities. Russia's government has banned wheat exports, sending world grain prices soaring.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is struggling with unprecedented flooding that has killed more than a thousand people and affected millions more. In China, flash floods have so far killed more than a thousand people and destroyed more than a million homes. On a smaller scale, European countries like Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic have also suffered serious flooding.

Meanwhile, global temperatures in recent months have been at their highest levels in records that go back 130 years. Arctic sea-ice cover reached its lowest ever recorded average level for the month of June. In Greenland two huge chunks of ice broke off in July and August.

Are these events connected? Looking only at individual extreme events will not reveal their cause, just like watching a few scenes from a movie does not reveal the plot. But, viewed in a broader context, and using the logic of physics, important parts of the plot can be understood.

Full article with embedded links: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/16/summer-extremes-wake-up-call