Climate change as national security threat (UPDATED)

It's a sad irony that some of the most vociferous climate deniers and opponents of clean energy are also some of the loudest cheerleaders for skyrocketing military budgets and chest-thumping war mongering -- in other words, self-proclaimed national security "hawks." If they were truly serious about national security, they would heed this latest assessment of the climate threat we face unless we take immediate action:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

"Topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions." Do any of those sound like events we might want to, I dunno, prevent? Or would the Team America: World Police crowd rather let them fester until we have no choice but to intervene? Because let's face it: as the country that coughs up 48% of world-wide military spending, America will be cleaning up a large portion of the coming mess.

It's not like we haven't been warned. Just last month, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry gave an important speech at the National Press Club reminding us of the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change and the importance of the U.S.-China relationship to solving the problem:

Our two nations have just met again at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the most important forum in our bilateral relationship. Only this time, it’s not just our geopolitics that are changing—but the earth itself. Global climate change poses a real and present danger of environmental destruction and human dislocation on a scale we’ve never seen.

That is why Generals and Admirals—some of whom appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week—have labeled climate change a “threat multiplier” and a serious national security threat.

Just last year, the U.S. intelligence community's top analyst predicted a global crisis due to climate change -- one that America won't be able to escape:

The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

For poorer countries, climate change "could be the straw that breaks the camel's back," Fingar said, while the United States will face "Dust Bowl" conditions in the parched Southwest. He said U.S. intelligence agencies accepted the consensual scientific view of global warming, including the conclusion that it is too late to avert significant disruption over the next two decades. The conclusions are in line with an intelligence assessment produced this summer that characterized global warming as a serious security threat for the coming decades.

We could begin to cut our dependence on the dirty fossil fuels that cause global warming and start leading the world in tackling the climate challenge head on for the price of a postage stamp a day. Passing strong clean energy legislation this year is probably the most important thing our leaders can do right now to ensure our national security and global stability. If opponents of strong climate action could stop thumping their chests for a minute, maybe they would realize the national security consequences of their obstructionism and get with the program.

UPDATE: Check out Operation Free, a great resource on the link between national security, climate change and clean energy.