This is shocking considering the source... The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies,". The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life." It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", . ...climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue. Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war: report LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon warns that climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism. The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was covered up by "US defense chiefs" for four months, until it was "obtained" by the British weekly The Observer. The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and military policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and President George W. Bush's skepticism about global warning -- a stance that has stunned scientists worldwide. The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies," The Observer reported. The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human life." Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "immediately" as a top political and military issue. It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern", they were quoted as saying. Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report include: -- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020. -- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California that supplies all water to densely populated southern California -- Europe and the United States become "virtual fortresses" trying to keep out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising sea levels or made unfarmable by drought. -- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and energy will lead to widespread war by 2020. Randall, one of the authors, called his findings "depressing stuff" and warned that it might even be too late to prevent future disasters. "We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years," he told the paper. Experts familiar with the report told the newspaper that the threat to global stability "vastly eclipses that of terrorism". Taking environmental pollution and climate change into account in political and military strategy is a new, complicated and necessary challenge for leaders, Randall said. "It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat," he said. Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of conservative politics, the report is expected to bring environmental issues to the fore in the US presidential race. Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists, an influential and non-partisan group that includes 20 Nobel laureates, accused the Bush administration of having deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its policy agenda and having "misled the public". Its 38-page report, which it said took over a year to prepare and was not time to coincide with the campaign season, details how Washington "systematically" skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others, stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees and often refused to seek independent expertise on issues. Critics of the report quoted by the New York Times denied there was deliberate misrepresentation and called it politically motivated. The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew Marsall, cannot be accused of the same partisan politicking. Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the defense department for decades, and was described by The Observer as the author of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1540&e=2&u=/afp/britain_us_environment
Not a piece from The Onion? Wow. The spin the Administration will put on this should be facinating to watch play out. Damned depressing stuff to read. Not terribly surprising, but damned depressing.
I don't know ... I think it would be pretty easy to spin - and fairly honestly. If I were them, I would just say this is the report of one small group that the rest of the Pentagon disagreed with. I mean really, do even the most aggressive forecasts of global warming have England being an arctic wasteland in 15 years and the Netherlands being uninhabitable in <B>3</B>? I would say if we saw all the "worst case scenario" reports that government analysts came up with, there would be lots of kooky things in there - especially from the Pentagon.
Frankly, I don't know what their scenario would entail to cause a radical change so quickly, unless they are thinking the Gulf Stream is going to stop streaming. That would have a huge effect on Britain and Europe. I find it hard to believe that things could change that fast. Maybe they know something we don't? Strange.
From what I've read, it's the work of a couple of futurists. We're more likely to run out of freshwater in parts of the US in the next couple of decades.
Here is more of the original piece from The Observer. Several of these scenarios occurring within a decade seem unlikely; which just makes this report all the more puzzling. Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York Sunday February 22, 2004 The Observer .............. Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change. Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change. A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch. One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible. Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change. Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.' Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored. 'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson. 'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace. Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated. Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.' Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said. 'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.' So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign. The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence. Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.' Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html
Just think about all the cars and CFC's that it must have taken to bring the earth out of the first ice age!
Well, the world is about due for several extinction level events: 1. Giant Meteor Strike - one hits us every 100,000 years of so and were just about due. 2. Supervolcano under Yellowstone - it blows up about every 620,000 years and it's been about 620,000 years since it went off last. 3. Reversal of the Earth's magnetic poles (this is not about charismatic Polish people) - There are signs that were in the process. 4. New Ice Age - Once again, depending on who you listen to we are either due for another Ice Age because of their cyclial nature or human-caused Global Warming is going to trigger it by disrupting the Gulf Stream and thus the current distribution of heat around the planet.
You missed a few - Massive solar flare - kills almost everything on surface of planet. Second coming of Jesus - kills almost everything on surface of planet.
Want to alienate everybody and have your research vehemently debunked, despite its probable accuracy and timeliness? Attack Americans' way of life. We are simply unreasonable when our way of life is called into question. We put our fingers in our ears and refuse to consider the reality of the situation. Maybe the Pentagon report is true. Maybe not. But that most of us here dismiss the report on general terms rather than on specific ones is evidence that anything that challenges our selfish lifestyle will be dismissed as "futurist" or "alarmist."
I completely agree. Many, even if presented with incontrovertible proof, will refuse to recognize a truth if accepting that truth would require them to actually change how they live or think or behave towards others. What if this report is true? I would appeal to the people who have children because they have the most to lose from this - are you willing to risk the stability of your childrens' future on the belief that there is nothing in this report to worry about? Or do you not give a damn?
Many, even if presented with incontrovertible proof, will refuse to recognize a truth if accepting that truth would require them to actually change how they live or think or behave towards others. Where's the introvertible proof? Why doesn't anyone outside of this little group think the Netherlands are going to be unihabitable in 3 years? You'd think the Netherlanders would care, if that was realistically the case... If you're going to try to take action to protect against every random doomsday scenario report that's produced within the Pentagon, you're going to have a miserable existence and waste a lot of money. At some point, you have to ask "does this report seem reasonable or ridiculous".
The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies,". An abrupt change could? Well, no duh. (there was another million well spent)
The incontrovertible proof statement was a general one - many dismissed this report out-of-hand without considering it. Global warming could easily make the Netherlands uninhabitable. It's mostly polder land - drained marshes. Y'know, the whole "finger in the dike" story (NOT the Penthouse Letters version - though it's certainly worth reading). Maybe the Netherlanders do care - but I don't read Dutch newspapers, or the Dutch language. Though I think most of this report is rather doomsdayish (new adjective?), I am not willing to readily dismiss it without considering the implications and the source. Massive climate change is a serious issue, and still largely ignored by mainstream America.
uhm, calm down everybody: http://www.speculist.com/archives/000701.html -- A Fisking Too Vigorous Greyhawk over at the Mudville Gazette is fisking the daylights out of one of my favorite organizations, the Global Business Network. His point, which is true as far as it goes, is that the scenarios developed by GBN shouldn't be taken as accurate predictions of the future. The truth is that GBN has never presented its scenarios as predictions. To operate in an uncertain world, people need to be able to reperceive—to question their assumptions about the way the world works, so they could see the world more clearly. The purpose of scenarios is to help yourself change your view of reality—to match it up more closely with reality as it is, and reality as it is going to be. The end result, however, is not an accurate picture of tomorrow, but better decisions about the future. (From The Art of the Long View. Emphasis in original.) The scenarios are thinking execrcises. In order to "question assumptions" and get a better grip on "reality as it is," GBN usually develops a set of highly divergent scenarios. That means that the global warming doomsday scenario that the Observer article referenced was part of a set. If GBN was true to form, they did anywhere from two to four additional scenarios (not referenced), at least one of which would probably have described a future in which little or no climatological change occurs. The author of the original article may or may not have known about the existence of additional scenarios. But had he done his homework, he would have learned enough about GBN to know that they aren't in the business of peddling doomsday predictions. Greyhawk, for all of his "the truth is out there" advice, might have done the same. Unfortunately, he took The Oberver/Guardian's word for it that these were predictions, so he researched the GBN site to collect a few nuggets that he could use to discredit Schwartz and company. The scenario-planning technique that GBN uses is far from perfect, although it has had some remarkable successes in the past. I've been lucky enough to meet Peter Schwartz and attend one of his talks. His political opinions may be a little too "Berkeley" for my tastes, too — although actually, his group's headquarters are in Emeryville, an industrial enclave to the south of the People's Republic, which is home to hippy outfits like Siebel Systems — but by and large, politics is beside the point. GBN doesn't have a political axe to grind, at least not in the traditional sense. They would like to bring about a change in the way political discourse occurs, particularly where the future is concerned. In this instance, I think Schwartz and company would prefer that the author of the Observer piece, rather than zeroing in on one set of easily sensationalized possibilities that fall perfectly in line with his own biases, find out about the other scenarios, opening himself and his readers to multiple possible futures. Likewise, they would probably consider it helpful for Greyhawk, rather than jumping to the conclusion that GBN is an "enemy" who needs to be made to look ridiculous, consider some of the other work that they've done (not just the Oprah and War Games and Mother Earth News stuff.) Who knows? He might find that his own certainty about the future is as poorly justified as that of his opponents, and that he still might have a few things to learn...even from a group heaquartered near Berkeley. UPDATE: Via Instapundit, Tim Blair reports just how wrong the Observer got it, inlcuding an explanatory quote from Schwartz himself: This is very much in the spirit of thinking the unthinkable. The report that we put together for the Pentagon is an extreme scenario, in the sense that most climatologists would say that this is low probability, in the sense of it happening soon, and as pervasively. But it is the Pentagon's job to think about many cases, [including?] the worst-case scenario
Global warming could easily make the Netherlands uninhabitable. The issue is not whether it would be uninhabitable... it's whether it would happen in 3 years. No scientific study that has any credibility has said something that bizarre. Why would we give much credence to a Pentagon report stating such?
Sorry, but I agree with those urging calm and skepticism here. Some Pentagon papers don't get leaked because they are completely goofy and useless. This appears to be one of those papers, and that's to say nothing of extra goofiness supplied by the newspaper folks.
I believe many of the countries mentioned are concerned: Rapid climate change research in the UK The Rapid Climate Change programme (RAPID) is a £20 million, six-year (2001-2007) thematic programme of the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The programme aims to improve our ability to quantify the probability and magnitude of future rapid change in climate, with a main (but not exclusive) focus on the role of the Atlantic Ocean's thermohaline circulation. http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/rapid/intro2rapid.php
