Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Ex-generals: Global warming threatens U.S. security
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Story Highlights•
Report predicts wars over water, hunger, displacement in the next 30-40 years
• "Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," one author says
• Gen. Zinni: We can pay with money now or with lives later to address problems

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the U.S. likely will be dragged into fights over water and other shortages, top retired military leaders warn in a new report.

The report says that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism," the 35-page report predicts.

"Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," former U.S. Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan told Associated Press Radio. "Everybody needs to start paying attention to what's going on. I don't think this is a particularly hard sell in the Pentagon. ... We're paying attention to what those security implications are."

Gen. Anthony "Tony" Zinni, President Bush's former Middle East envoy, says in the report: "It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism."

The report was issued by the Alexandria, Virginia-based, national security think-tank The CNA Corporation and was written by six retired admirals and five retired generals. They warn of a future of rampant disease, water shortages and flooding that will make already dicey areas -- such as the Middle East, Asia and Africa -- even worse.

"Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies," the report says. "The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations."

Joining calls already made by scientists and environmental activists, the retired U.S. military leaders call on the U.S. government to make major cuts in emissions of gases that cause global warming.

The Bush administration has declined mandatory emission cuts in favor of voluntary methods. Other nations have committed to required reductions that kick in within a few years.

"We will pay for this one way or another," writes Zinni, former commander of U.S. Central Command. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."

Top climate scientists said the report makes sense and increased national security risk is a legitimate global warming side-effect.

The report is "pretty impressive," but may be too alarmist because it may take longer than 30 years for some of these things to happen, said Stanford scientist Terry Root, a co-author of this month's international scientific report on the effects of global warming on life on Earth.

But the instability will happen sometime, Root agreed.

"We're going to have a war over water," Root said. "There's just not going to be enough water around for us to have for us to need to live with and to provide for the natural environment."

University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said the military officers were smart to highlight the issue of refugees who flee unstable areas because of global warming.

"There will be tens of millions of people migrating, where are we going to put them?" Weaver said.

Weaver said that over the past years, scientists, who by nature are cautious, have been attacked by conservative activists when warning about climate change. This shows that it's not a liberal-conservative issue, Weaver said.

So where again are these cars offering better gas mileage that don't cost more?

here is an interesting point of view on global warming expressed by some retired U.S. generals .
retired marine corps general zinni - who is well-known for speaking his mind - says :
"We can pay with money now or with lives later " !

Hamburger writes

Quote:

here is an interesting point of view on global warming expressed by some retired U.S. generals .
retired marine corps general zinni - who is well-known for speaking his mind - says :
"We can pay with money now or with lives later " !

So then, we should add a few military types and envoys along with Queen Elizabeth and George W. Bush as experts on climatology? I'm REALLY going to have to think long and hard about that.

The simple comment of one of those bozos claiming that climate change and terrorism are related was enough for me to know that this is much ado about pretty much nothing.

Foxfyre wrote:

Hamburger writes

Quote:

here is an interesting point of view on global warming expressed by some retired U.S. generals .
retired marine corps general zinni - who is well-known for speaking his mind - says :
"We can pay with money now or with lives later " !

So then, we should add a few military types and envoys along with Queen Elizabeth and George W. Bush as experts on climatology? I'm REALLY going to have to think long and hard about that.

The simple comment of one of those bozos claiming that climate change and terrorism are related was enough for me to know that this is much ado about pretty much nothing.

and long may you continue in your state of blissful ignorance.

So then, we should add a few military types and envoys along with Queen Elizabeth and George W. Bush as experts on climatology? I'm REALLY going to have to think long and hard about that.

... That there has been a degree of warming going on in the past two decades is undisputed - just as is the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the possibility that this could be a contributor to the observed changes.

I admire your efforts to deny the tide the right to come in George.

1. The "degree" of warming is unprecedented2.As is the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. 3.The science is done... the "possibility" is reduced to almost zero.."could be a contributor" should read "is the major cause of anthropogenic global warming".

I admire your efforts to deny the tide the right to come in George. But King Canute still got wet.

Steve 41oo wrote:

I admire your efforts to deny the tide the right to come in George.

Just in cas you really do that, George:



:wink:

Negative tidal coefficient (at Wed 17:31) ???
This must be at a weird location.

Foxfyre wrote:

So where again are these cars offering better gas mileage that don't cost more?

No idea.
I just and only wanted to point to the sentence that the "big three" said, they couldn't raise fuel economy without increasing car prices.