Misinformation About the Military and Climate Change
By Tim Gallaudet
October 29, 2024
A recent opinion piece in Politico from a former Department of Defense (DoD) official in the Obama Administration claimed that the U.S. military’s response to climate change confirms that the topic is a top national security consideration. CNN echoed the conclusion a day later.
With all due respect to the author, I feel compelled to correct the articles’ scientific inaccuracies and unfounded assertions about our armed forces and climate change.
First off, conflating every extreme weather event with climate change is imprecise, incomplete, and incorrect. The most glaring example is the author’s emphasis on North Atlantic hurricanes, citing the extensive damage at Tyndall Air Force Base from Hurricane Michael in 2018, as well as disaster preparedness efforts by the National Guard in advance of Hurricanes Helene, Beryl, and Milton this year. While various climate model projections point to the potential for some climate change scenarios to see more frequent and intense tropical cyclones, satellite data over the past 50 years show no upward or downward trend in these types of storms.
The author also refers to a recent increase in National Guard deployments to combat wildfires as evidence that climate change is impacting military missions. In fact, wildfire frequency in the U.S. is decreasing, and whatever the case, they are an ineffective metric because factors other than climate, such as forest management, are important in determining their occurrence.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/10/29/misinformation_about_the_military_and_climate_change_1068353.html
