Think-Tank Study - Climate Breakdown Will Be Among Greatest Security Threats In US History - AP

[hatrack]

EDIT

The report was compiled by a panel of security and climate specialists, sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security. The Associated Press received an advance copy. Climate change is likely to breed new conflicts, but it already is magnifying existing problems, from the desertification of Darfur and competition for water in the Middle East to the disruptive monsoons in Asia which increase the pressure for land, the report said.

It examined three scenarios, ranging from the consequences of an expected temperature increase of 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2040, to the catastrophic implications of a 10-degree rise by the end of the century.

At the very least, the report said, the U.S. can expect more population migrations, both internally and from across its borders; a proliferation of diseases; greater conflict in weak states, especially in Africa where climates will change most drastically; and a restructuring in global power in line with the accessibility of natural resources.

Left unchecked, "the collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life," said the report, comparing the potential outcome with the Cold War doomsday scenarios of a nuclear holocaust. "Climate change has the potential to be one of the greatest national security challenges that this or any other generation of policy makers is likely to confront," said the report. Among its contributors were former CIA director James Woolsey, Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, National Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone, President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff John Podesta and former Vice President Al Gore's security adviser Leon Fuerth.

EDIT

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5josNxJPCLGIsWo_wREwGvEJU2skwD8SM1UH00

[kestrel91316]

1. "Among?"........"AMONG?????"

[GliderGuider]

2. Well, yes actually, "among"...

If you're looking for the security threat that's really going to start to bite in the next 5 years, it's the net oil export crisis. Imagine having the world's oil exports cut by 75% within ten years...

Climate change will be a major biggie, but it won't become into "a clear and present danger" to the USA for another 20 years or so.

[phantom power]

3. It might become a clear and present danger to the south-east next year.

Not that I really care who wins this rat-race. It's all going to kill us soon enough.
x(

[GliderGuider]

4. You're right

I has a brain fart and forgot about the droughts and water shortages. It looks like the water and oil droughts may hit at the same time.

[kestrel91316]

5. You have a point there. And the oil crisis could put the kibosh on GW.

[northernsoul]

6. I can't help but wonder if this is what the border wall and detention centers are about

Our own Dr. GliderGuider has some pretty chilling thoughts about the prospects of our southern neighbors in near future as a result of converging crises:

The Scenario

* Mexico's biggest oil field is Cantarell. Its 2 million barrel per day output was responsible for 60% of Mexico's production, and all its oil exports to the United States.
* Those oil exports account for 40% of Mexico's public funding.
* Cantarell's output is known to be crashing (see graphic above). Production has declined by 25% in the last year and is predicted to be down about 60% from its peak by the end of 2007. The field will probably lose over 75% of its production capacity by the end of 2008.
* When this happens Mexico's economy will probably implode.
* The United States currently exports about 20% of its corn crop.
* Next year, 20% of the United States' corn crop is going to be used for ethanol.
* Mexico imports a substantial amount of corn from the United States.
* As Cantarell's output declines, oil exports to the US will drop in lockstep.
* As oil imports drop in the US, the pressure will mount to produce more ethanol as a substitute.
* As more corn is bought by the American ethanol industry, US corn exports, especially to Mexico, will slide.
* At the same time the probability is high that Global Warming will result in higher temperatures in Mexico, a country already at temperature risk.
* Rising temperatures will bring more drought conditions and a drop in Mexico's own corn production.
* Now you have a country with a decimated economy and declining food. This is a recipe for massive migration.
* The migration moves North as it has in the past, but this time in enormous numbers.
* As the economic refugees cross the border what do they find?
* In January, 2006, KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) was given a $385M contract to build a string of very large detention camps in the United States...

Peak oil, global warming, food, biofuels and authoritarianism — all rolled up into one neat but ugly little package. Coming to a border near you within 3 years.

I can't help but wonder if somebody deep inside an "undisclosed location" knows that there will be a human flood of climate chaos/peak oil refugees headed our way in the next few years and has decided that the solution is to repel them by force of arms. Shudder.

The detention camps, I fear, are for us.

[NNadir]

11. Are you talking about the ones around Bangladesh, or the ones around Mexico?

Let me tell you something. The Mexican Army may end up driving deep into Minnesota, territory they will refuse to "return" as reparations for the crimes of 1848.

You think I'm kidding?

Um, well, we'll see.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Reuters: Experts say climate change threatens national security

http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN0528470920071105

Experts say climate change threatens national security

Mon Nov 5, 2007 8:22pm GMT

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Climate change could end globalization by 2040 as nations look inward to conserve scarce resources and conflicts flare when refugees flee rising seas and drought, national security experts warned on Monday.

...

Published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the report offers three scenarios for security implications of climate change, starting with the middle-ground estimate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

...

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Report Here

http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,4154/type,1/

[bananas]

9. wow - the cover is a picture of the earth going down the drain

Larger version in the pdf:

[NNadir]

10. You mean worse than "terrorism?"

There was no way of predicting that.

Who knew?

[Shoelace]

12. scientists said it all along - it's happening in real time

we have 300,000+ Mexican refugees fleeing to the north from flooding in Tabasco, Chiapas, Mexico just this past week for fear of disease caused by said flooding not to mention all the climate change/extreme weather events happening all over the world right now that has driven climate refugees from their homes and stopped commerce dead in it's tracks. Look what one single tropical storm did to Mexico's oil exports this past week:


After flying over the state, Mr Calderon described the flooding as "not just the worst natural catastrophe in the state's history but, I would venture to say, one of the worst in the country's recent history".

The floods were triggered by storms that also crippled Mexico's oil industry.

Twenty-one people died last week when storms forced an oil platform into another rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Flooding has also affected the southern state of Chiapas, where several thousand people have been moved to safety.

The storms have forced the closure of three of Mexico's main oil ports, preventing almost all exports and halting a fifth of the country's oil production.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7078206.stm


Being a weather geek, I can tell you, it is upon us now. "Abrupt climate change" is what we now see before us and the consequences will rock our world sooner than the blink of an eye!

Some of us did "know"!