The Pentagon Needs to Put Climate Clarity at the Top of Its Target List
By Tim Gallaudet
April 19, 2023
Over the past two years, the Biden Administration’s Department of Defense (DoD) has directed the U.S. military to support Executive Order (EO) 14008 Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. As the global security situation seems to deteriorate by the day, it is worth asking the question, “Are the DoD’s actions to address climate change in the nation’s best interest?”
To answer this question, first consider the DoD Climate Adaptation Plan which was released in September 2021. Curiously, this was nearly two months before the release of the DoD Climate Risk Analysis. Risk analyses are a standard part of the military operational planning process, so the sequencing of these two documents is suspect. More concerning in the latter is the complete absence of citations of peer-reviewed scientific research regarding the climatic trends it identifies. In fact, the DoD Climate Risk Analysis presents no actual analysis at all and instead simply asserts a range of security implications resulting from climate change.
The DoD Climate Risk Analysis also characterizes climate change as an “existential” threat. Despite the persistent alarmism coming from the media, the Administration, and the United Nations, this is an unfounded claim which assumes that (a) we know with certainly that widespread and extreme changes will occur, and (b) our species will be unable to adapt unless we take action to stop them by drastically reducing the greenhouse gas emissions which are causing them. Both are problematic. Climate projections are rife with uncertainty, and even the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has recently adopted lower emissions scenarios that are far more likely.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/04/19/the_pentagon_needs_to_put_climate_clarity_at_the_top_of_its_target_list_894526.html
