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Mother Nature's Nuclear Strike
John McConnico / AP Photo
Climate change poses a catastrophic threat for all G-8 nations, writes the former Democratic nominee for president in a security memo he likens to President Bush’s pre-9/11 warning.
On August 6, 2001, President George W. Bush famously received an intelligence briefing entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Thirty-six days later, al Qaeda terrorists did just that.
Today, as the leaders of the G-8 and the members U.S. Senate simultaneously debate climate-change policy shifts, scientists tell us we have a 10-year window—if even that—before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible. So I’ve put together the briefing that needs to be read by every American—before it’s the Day After.
Climate Change Poses Stark National Security Threat to U.S.
The scientific community agrees that climate change is real, human activity is contributing to it, and the window for doing something about it is closing rapidly.
Shifting weather patterns may turn the American “breadbasket” into a dustbowl.
Atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels have risen 38% in the industrial era, from 280 to 385 parts per million (ppm). Scientists have warned that anything above 450 ppm—a warming of 2 degrees Celsius—will result in an unacceptable risk of catastrophic climate change.
The truth is that the threat we face is not an abstract concern for the future. It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. The Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013, not 2030—and the loss of summer ice will accelerate warming because dark water absorbs more sunlight than snow and ice do.
Meanwhile, the ocean, which acts as a natural sink for carbon dioxide, is losing its ability to absorb emissions. This means that the impacts of climate change are being felt stronger than expected, faster than expected.
A recent study of the Siberian Shelf found that columns of methane bubbles—another greenhouse gas 20 times more damaging than CO2—are rising from the sea floor as a result of warmer ocean waters in the Arctic.
The science is unequivocal. The question is no longer whether or not climate change is happening, it’s whether we’ve passed the climate-tipping point.
The stakes could not be clearer. Look at the tiny coastal village of Newtok, Alaska. Citizens there recently voted to move their village nine miles inland because melting ice shelves made their old home too dangerous. Anyone who doubts the reality of climate change should go to Alaska and see the melting permafrost for themselves, or listen to the state’s two U.S. senators tell worrisome stories about climate change’s current—not future—impact on their state.
The challenges will only grow more severe, however, if we do nothing to address climate change. Dramatic sea-level rises could result from glaciers melting in Greenland and Antarctica, shifting weather patterns may turn the American “breadbasket” into a dustbowl, and increased periods of drought will lead to political instability and population migrations around the world, including in our own hemisphere.
Because of the magnitude of the consequences facing us, the national-security community has begun to take note. In 2007, 11 retired American admirals and generals issued a report from the Center for Naval Analyses warning that “Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national-security challenges for the United States.” In 2008, the final national-defense strategy of the Bush administration recognized climate change among key trends that will shape U.S. defense policy in the coming years. And the National Intelligence Council—the U.S. intelligence community’s think-tank—has concluded “global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national-security interests over the next 20 years.”
Nowhere is the connection between climate and security more direct than in South Asia—home to al Qaeda. Scientists now warn that the Himalayan glaciers which supply fresh water to a billion people in the region could disappear completely by 2035. Think about what this means: Water from the Himalayans flows through India and Pakistan. India’s rivers are not only vital to its agriculture but are also critical to its religious practice. Pakistan, for its part, is heavily dependent on irrigated farming to avoid famine. At a moment when the U.S. government is scrambling to ratchet down tensions and preparing to invest billions of dollars to strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to deliver for its people—climate change could work so powerfully in the opposite direction.
Worldwide, climate change risks making the most volatile places even more combustible.
The bottom line is that failure to tackle climate change risks much more than a ravaged environment: It risks a much more dangerous world, and a gravely threatened America.
* *
There’s much more to the climate-change challenge—threats to our military bases at home and abroad, threats to our allies, threats to stability in regions of the world the United States has invested billions of dollars and the lives of its sons and daughters.
Unfortunately, not everyone in Congress appreciates the stakes. It’s tragic that we live at a time when if one were to dismiss the threat of terrorism, you’d be run out of Washington in the next election. But there are no similar political consequences if you dismiss the science and the facts about the threat posed by climate change.
In less than six months, delegates from 192 nations will gather in Copenhagen to create a new global climate treaty. Between now and then, the United States Congress is expected to act on climate legislation. The decisions we make in these six months will determine whether we meet this challenge head-on and prevail or if we are to suffer the worst consequences of a warming planet.
This is our warning memo, America.
John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, is the junior senator from Massachusetts and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
FoolsLogos
Thoughtful piece, Al Gore--I mean John Kerry.
milarepa
Thanks for self-identifying as Wilfully Ignorant. Here's your sign.
NHBill
hey at least Kerry didn't lose his own state in a Presidential race! Geesh that Gore was such a tool.
beachmom
John Kerry has a long and extensive record on the environment starting in 1970 when he helped organize the first Earth Day in Mass. He was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters almost as soon as he announced his run for the presidency in 2003, his record in the Senate was so stellar. He also had a lot to do with the cap and trade program to get rid of acid rain, when he was a Lt. Governor. I love Al Gore, but he is not the only one who has been a long time environmental activist.
Karenc
John Kerry has worked on this issue since he was a member of Gore's subcommittee which held the first hearings on global warming. He has attended all the global warming conferences. In fact, he met Teresa Heinz, who was a NGO delegate because of her own work on green buildings, at the Rio one. He was Obama's unofficial representative at the Poznan conference. At the 2007 Bali conference, he was the entire congressional delegation. He was praised by the official US delegation with Stuart Ezinstat saying at a SFRC hearing "The fact that we had a treaty was significantly due to the fact that Senator Kerry was there. He was a virtual part of our negotiating team, without his day and night support and lobbying of the EU. we would not have gotten a treaty."
smith48
The science has been corupted by politics for so long no one knows what the truth is.
John Kerry in 2012----NOT!
NHBill
Do your own reading. 'Scientific American' is a good place to start. This is not really that difficult to understand if you try.
Utopia
I subscribed to Scientific American for years, but no longer get it. The magazine had become way too politicized. I found the climate change articles particularly unbalanced.
BillSanford
Err... umm.
Could someone tell Kerry that this has all happened before? Many times before? And that many people in the Midwest live at the bottom of what used to be (8K years ago) a mile-thick glacier?
Or at least draw the good senator a picture... hate to ask him to actually think about hings.
Maverick
Do you know what the world's population was 8,000 years ago? Less than 10 million. Now? Over 6 billion.
Thousands of years ago when temperatures fluctuated, you could move entire populations into more favorable climates and areas with better resources.
At present, there is nowhere for these populations to move. There will be no places with better resources. It is almost impossible to cultivate enough food for all people in the world at present, and these are under extremely favorable conditions. What happens if small temperature increases cause significant differences in crop yields? If even a small portion of the fresh water available for irrigation is lost?
It doesn't matter whether or not this happened throughout history; the fact is that if it happens now, the consequences will be far more dire. Sure, there's a good chance that we will be able to eke out some type of living as the middle of the country turns into a barren wasteland. But several billion people will simultaneously face starvation, and even those living in rich countries will suffer huge decreases in quality of life.
Yes, temperatures fluctuate. But we are contributing to it, and if we minimize that contribution, we will all be much better off.
I also love how some whack jobs on this thread minimize positions taken be Al Gore and John Kerry. They didn't come up with the evidence on climate change science; scientists did. What empirical evidence is can be cited that contradicts climate change? A handful of reports that could never stand up to peer review or statistical analysis. Perfect example: the "suppressed" EPA report that was penned by a conservative economist, not a scientist. Great fact-finding, conservatives.
NHBill
What's your point? Your OK with cataclysmic climate change?
BillSanford
NHBill & maverick...
The point is simple:
1.) Google Global Warming - there is NO consensus on man causing it... politicians and would be money-makers, yes, but not scientists. Your "cases" are old cases, countered by newer cases... Australia, New Zealand have bailed out. Check the latest WSJ...
2.) Climate Change is NORMAL - THAT IS THE POINT. Don't think you can go spending my money because we have a high population - if we need to do something about population and the climate, call it that, but not some concocted "Global Warming".
squiggy
Thank you very much Bill! Kerry is just practicing to be senior senator when Kennedy kicks the bucket. If you can't make it in the market you become a politician and then when you can't make it as a politician you take your show on the road! Wonder where he is in this story?
slagheap
Theren is roughly 1000 years evidence that solar activity (sunspots), or the lack of solar activity plays a major role in climate change. We are at solar minimum
of Cycles 23. The next cycle may be a weak cycle. If we have several of these, as was the case in the 19th century, the average temperature will drop enough to cooler weather in summer, and longer winters. Climate change in the opposite direction. Might even be a Maunder Minimum. Seventy years of cold weather.
dmattea
I am a 49 yr old male and an avid outdoorsman with three children. I have indoctrinated my children to loving the outdoors as I do. I hunt in the fall and fish all yr long, and have all my life. I know its anecdotal, but the last two yrs the ice has been thicker than I have ever seen it in my 40 yrs of ice fishing. I follow the global warming issue very closely. There is not a scientific consensus. More and more scientists every day are rethinking thier positions and the theory is very much discredited. Obama and the liberal left are attempting to ruin the economy through meaningless feel good gestures, that even if the theory is true, would have virtually no effect. Through out the history of the world there has been significant climate changes. We are kidding ourselfs if we think we are the cause.
gommygoomy
If anybody ever needed any more EVIDENCE, that this Climate GARBAGE, is GARBAGE, just look who's peddling it. Al Gore? You mean, the world famous CLIMATOLOGIST? The world famous METEOROLOGIST? I do know, that he has a world famous HEDGE FUND. He buys and sells CARBON CREDITS. The Church of England, I understand, just deposited about 200 MILLION DOLLARS in it. Not bad for a Divinity School Dropout. Wouldn't you say?'And now look who's gotten in to the act. ANOTHER great SCIENTIFIC MIND. The GREAT ASTRO PHYSCISIST...John F. KERRY. And you thought that all he did was MARRY RICH WIDOWS. Not so. I can tell you, first hand, sitting here in Ct. on JULY 9, that the EARTHS' CLIMATE is definately CHANGING. It's 60 DEGREES. 60. JULY 9th. 60 Degrees. We're setting NEW RECORDS every day, for days below 85 degrees. But don't let THAT stop you. You should never let the FACTS, get in the way of your good time. After all. These guys MUST know what they're talking about. They own lots of Mansions. They drive Big Cars. And they fly all over the place in their Private Jets. So they know a few things, when it comes to Carbon Footprints, and using too much energy. And, there's always that Rich Widow marrying thing. I wish Me were more smart like them more. Where me send check to? IDIOTS!
SC0TTBL4M
Go back to the Foxs News forum. They miss you there.
NHBill
Why not turn off talk radio for a week and read peer reviewed scientific literature. You can read right? Or maybe it's all part of the baby jesus' plan.
Utopia
I used to believe the conventional wisdom about climate change, but once I began to read of the primary sources for myself I began to have doubts. I suggest you read the latest IPCC report, and think about how little support there is for the policy recommendations.
crngndmhm
There you have it irrefutable proof that there is no global warming. Records set daily for temperatures under 85 degrees. Because it's not like climate is a system that's constantly ebbing and flowing, it's not like we've had places in the rockies that were normally covered in eight feet of snow were bare this past winter.
But no you should just discount everything your told because you don't like the person or their position. I just hope you don't have a thing against fire fighters when they tell you to evacuate a burning building.
Karenc
Senator Kerry listens to the top scientists who are, for the most part, in agreement that global warming is happening and it is caused by man. In addition, the only widow he married was the brilliant, beautiful Teresa Heinz, who he met at the Rio environmental conference. She was there as a non-governmental delegate appointed by George HW Bush, because of the work that she has done on green buildings in Pittsburgh.
By the way, Kerry has spoken of the car he drives - a hybrid with an aftermarket battery, sold by a Watertown, MA company. I think he said it gets 150 miles per gallon.
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n--Y--TuckerTheLoveSpongesquiggy
Then is was global ice age! Lordy, I had almost forgotten about that, again! LOL
mikefromArlington
I understand conservatives think its fun to fight against this. I don't really know if its just them being partisan or if its something too complicated for them to comprehend so they will find the simplest argument against it and use it as proof a majority of the scientific community are wrong about this.
I ask all of you to pause for a moment and think just for a second, what if your wrong. What if all the scientists are right. What if we are truly destroying our planet when we could have done something about it.
For anyone that gives a damn about life and the planet God gave us, rather than jumping on the bandwagon of naysayers jumping on arguments such as, hey, it was pretty warm today, hardie har har, please take a look at the evidence being brought forth by the majority of scientists that truly believe we are destroying our planet.
For anyone old enough to remember, go back to the 80's. Remember the fight against CFC's and the deterioration of the ozone layer? Remember some of the same arguments being made. It wasn't until Reagan got skin cancer that he suddenly had a reality check and took a serious look at the arguments. From that point forward, he stopped listening to his appointed EPA chief who was a naysayer of CFC's causing ozone depletion and joined onto a global campaign to cut their use.
I ask everyone, please, for our futures sake, look at the arguments with a serious perspective.
Thank you.
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n--Y--CharlestonDoverNHBill
So stop listening and start reading! Educate yourself.
beachmom
He is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and any treaty will go through his committee.
Valkyrie607
Well then they're judging the messenger, not the message. It's too bad that so many people hate Gore and Kerry so much, but that doesn't change that the content of what they're saying is factually accurate.
DocEngineer
Senator Poodle,
Would you please enlighten me on what the global mean temperature is supposed to be?
Many thanks!
Doc Engineer
Ozone69
The only "warnings" of future actions by al-Qaida were completely wrong - for example, suggesting that terrorists might be planning an attack "with explosives" or preparing to attack "federal buildings in New York."
But liberals cite the Aug. 6 PDB as if it were a clarion warning of the 9/11 attacks.
In fact, if Bush had directed all members of the executive branch to drop everything and jump on the "warnings" in the Aug. 6 PDB, bomb-sniffing dogs would have been prowling the nation and police lookouts would have been stationed at federal buildings in New York City - as planes smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
as for Global Warming, I mean Climate Change, or whatever it is called this month, maybe it's not as doom and gloom as Al Gore and Co. predict. There are glaciers in S. America that ae actually expanding. Maybe this is supposed to happen.
mikefromArlington
I'm not sure why you would spread misinformation about glaciers expanding in S. America. It's pretty common knowledge many of the glaciers down there are disappearing.
It's dishonest debate like yours that is dangerous. Either you're being paid to spread misinformation or are just being funny in your own mind.
Ozone69
Not being funny, just not buying this blindly. Doesn't the climate change every year? With varying degrees of change? Read this article and maybe it will at least give you something to think about from the other side of the fence:
"Argentine glacier advances despite warming"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31363631/ns/us_news-environment/
valwayne
And we are suppose to believe a politician, not a scientist, because? Because he's trying to get one of the largest tax increases in American History passed in the Senate with the Cap & Tax bill and he's using good old fashion scare tactics to do it. The science is unequivocal. We know as of last week that Obama's own EPA doesn't agree with that assessment, because the suppressed report has leaked. We also know we have Nobel Laureates and experts in the field by the hundreds that absoltely dispute what politician Kerry is saying. As a matter of fact there is growing evidence that we are in a cooling cycle cause by a cyclical downturn in activity on the sun. As to an Alaskan village moving do to climate...DUH John Kerry. Climate has changed for millions of years and througout all of human history. Entire civilizations like the Mayans have ended due to cyclical changes in the climate of their region, or the earth, and it had nothing to do with Global Warming? Climate Changes! The citizens of the U.S. should not be scared into handing over their earning by the trillions, nor control of their lives to a bunch of scheming, lying, corrupt, power grabbing politicians that fly around the country in private jets and spew more carbon into the air with their huge mansions and fancy cars than any 1000 average Americans..
Robadude32
Very well said Valwayne. I second your motion.
beachmom
Why, you're not listening to any scientists. Otherwise you wouldn't be spouting such nonsense. Why do conservatives in Europe get global climate change while conservatives in America don't? Maybe all the propaganda you subject yourself to?
Karenc
The fact is the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is a serious problem. There are NOT Nobel Laureates and experts in the field who dispute this. Can you name some of these Nobel Laureates?
It is critical to act even if I were to concede that global warming is a 50/50 chance - when it appears far more likely as even some conservative politicians like Newt Gingrich have conceded it is real and man made. (http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_in fo&products_id=197538-1&highlight=gingrich ) In 2004, Kerry spoke of the side effects of acting to slow and halt global warming - there would be a boost to the economy because we would create good jobs producing the technology and products that create alternative energy or are more efficient, cleaner air and water, that lead to better health and less dependence on an unstable Middle East. These really don't sound bad, but if you are wrong, there is catastrophe.
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n--Y--CharlestonDoverscsums1
Remember earlier in this decade when democrats accused Republicans as using terrorism as a "scare tactic," even after 3,000 Americans were killed on our own soil. How is the whole global warming (which as since been changed to global climate change, because the earth's temperature is sinking, no rising) any different? The only difference is that there is no debate that terrorism is a threat and has killed people. While there is still much to debate about global warming. Unfortunately, as we've recently seen with released emails from the EPA, the administration does not want debate that might interfere with it's stated policy goals. Those individuals who say the science is settled need to look through history at how often "settled" science was wrong. They also might want to look at the senate minority report where 700 scientists debunk the alleged consensus over global warming. That's a hell of a lot more than the 50 or so scientists that authored the IPCC - 2007 report. It is entirely possible that people are part of the problem, but it is naive to think we are the entire problem or that the science is settled. It makes no sense to bankrupt our country based on science that hasn't been debated in a time where we are facing trillions in deficits.
YogiBarrister
Kerry is waving a red cape in front of angry, ill-informed rightwing bulls. Even if 95% of the world's climatologists are wrong, there is no downside to reducing greenhouse gases, using alternative energy sources, and preserving our water supply. What's so appalling about these corporatist monkeys is that they are also going to destroy the only thing they care about, the ability for people to make money.
One example of their foolishness. The state of California passed a law requiring cars to get better gas mileage, thus reducing emissions while strengthening our defense. Instead of designing a car that meets their standards (and those of other countries), the US manufacturers went to Bush and cried like little babies. Now we have an industry that can't compete and a war for oil that wrecked our economy.
NHBill
Way to go Yogi! I pic-a-nic basket for you!
crngndmhm
I agree whole heartily! How is not polluting, preserving natural resources, developing alternate fuel sources a bad thing? Because John Kerry and Al Gore said that they're good things? That's poor reasoning at the best of times.
squiggy
Make that two pic-a-nic baskets! Good job!
mnemos
Actually, there is a downside - it's called cost. Debate about the trade offs, but pretending they don't exist doesn't make a lot of sense. Alternative energy sources are a good idea, but which ones are scalable - here's a hint - not hydro (can't make dams everywhere), not wind (don't have consistent wind patterns everywhere). But where are they most efficient with least impact? What are the environmental impacts of the alternatives - eg. nuclear waste, environmental damage due to dams, environmental impacts of changing wind patterns. Why did we federally mandate power generation can't be local (regulations from the '90s subsidizes non-local generation) - how much energy are we wasting by generating New York City's electricity in western Pennsylvania. What is the impact of that energy waste and environmental damage required to run high voltage lines.
If we listen to objections, we can use them to find better solutions. If we don't we wind up thinking that those who don't agree are "corporatist monkeys".
WilliamShipley
A few problems:
1. It's getting colder, not warmer for the last few years and if you watch the sun, you will note the current minimum is pretty quiet, so it's going to be getting colder for a while, maybe the next 30 years. This could be really bad since colder has a really bad impact on crops and energy use.
2. Warmer is actually better. During the periods in the past when it's been this warm (and it has), humanity has had expansions of culture and society as growing seasons increase. A few degrees warmer would actually be good for us.
3. CO2 is a relatively light player in climate. Increased CO2 will increase plant growth and generally make the planet greener.
We have a changing climate, we've always had a changing climate, we will always have a changing climate. That how the world works. This is like always wanting the world to be like it was when you were a kid. Time to grow up.
NHBill
Simply juvenile.
rakehell
Yes, you do have a few problems with your information, Mr. Shipley.
1. The earth is not cooling. Seven of the last 10 years are the hottest on record.
2. Only slight warming is better and it's only better for people in colder climates. We've already passed that point.
3. CO2 is less important than methane, but CO2 is quite enough to accomplish climate change. It also the one humans most contribute and thus the only one we can exercise any real degree of control over. More of it won't make the planet greener, Plants use only so much and we continue to reduce the number of plants anyway. Look at satellite photos of Haiti and Brazil.
Trust me, you don't want to experience what will happen. Mr. Kerry and others are quite possibly understating the effects.
"Scientists now warn that the Himalayan glaciers which supply fresh water to a billion people in the region could disappear completely by 2035. Think about what this means: Water from the Himalayans flows through India and Pakistan." -Kerry
Not only will the Ganges and Indus essentially dry up, but so will the Irrawaddy and Mekong. Long before that happens, likely within 10-15 years large migrations of humans will begin to occur. Where will these people go? Wherever they go, there will be trouble.
narvick
Ode(ious) to pseudo president George W. Bush:
He led us past our still factories
He shattereth our Credibility
He depleteth our Military
He destroyeth our Environment
He bankrupteth our Country's Economy
He almost bankrupteth the world's Economy
He enricheth his friends at the expense of
our Credibility, our Military, our Environment,
our Economy
He screweth up our Country on an apocalyptic
scale
Tom Nass
5th Marine Division - WWII
Thank you.
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