The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues.
By David Stipp
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Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.
The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade?like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies?thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.
Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall's California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia?it's easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change.
Sorcha: Today as "Fires blaze out of control across Portugal" http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/22/europe/web.0822lisbon.php
and the ?Great Drought of 2005? http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9038261/ decimates Americas Heartland, the main debate among the most average of these Western peoples is not to the planning for their protection and survival, but is instead about who they will, or will not listen to as the warnings from God, Nature and their fellow world citizens continue to assail them, most falling upon their deaf ears.
Hmmnn... we may need something to stretch our gasoline for our generators, much less our cars..
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