Articles include: ‘Which climate change jobs will be in high demand in the future?’; Most newspaper editorials mum on Biden 50% by 2030 pledge; Revitalized U.S. urgency on climate change and national security; Empire State Realty Trust agrees to buy 300 million kilowatt hours of wind energy; Affordable housing could be hit hard as sea levels rise; Environmental engineer launches group for Latinos in sustainability; New tool called ‘Vulcan’ could help cities better estimate their carbon dioxide emissions; Women scientists launch ‘Science Moms,’ a climate campaign aimed at mothers.
Tag: national security
Report: Combatting climate change will make us more secure
The Hill: Combatting climate change will make us more secure.
President Biden introduce legislation giving new hires signing bonuses after negative jobs report. Three questions about Biden’s conservation goals. MORE’s recent Leaders Summit on Climate highlighted the clear and compelling link between climate instability and our national security. The White House made a key theme of the summit the need to “address the global security challenges posed by climate change and the impact on readiness.” For the United States, climate impacts on our military operations, service members, economy and global stability will erode our standing on the world stage and our ability to project U.S. power.
Fourteen years ago, during the George W. Bush administration, the CNA Military Advisory Board, in collaboration with scientists and analysts at CNA, released our first report on the national security threats from climate change.
Representing our nation’s most senior military leaders, the board concluded that “climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.” We also determined that less demand for fossil fuels like diesel and jet fuel would make our combat forces more effective and less vulnerable in the battlespace. Too few U.S. leaders heeded those warnings and recommendations in the intervening years. Now that seems to be changing.
EHN Sciences.org- April 9, 2021
EHSciences.org produces many links to environmental and health related stories. They are well worth subscribing to.
Above The Fold – Children’s News: DDT; PFAS; chemicals’ impact on male fertility; Black maternal health; children held in toxic detention centers; their ‘Fractured’ investigation; toxic heavy metals in baby food; federal support for food program; asthma funding in California; lead legislation; FDA’s rationale on baby food; pediatricians and lead poisoning.
Above The Fold – Covid News: US intelligence report; pregnancy & vaccination; predicting the next pandemic; food workers and Covid; pink dolphins in Hong Kong; AI designing antibodies; pandemic & electric vehicles.
The Daily Climate, March 24, 2021
Articles include: NATO & Climate Change; Cloud seeding; Anti-pipeline protests; corporate sustainability data; Biden and clean energy; Indonesians & coal court battle; Supreme Court – national monuments and environmental protections; House Committee on Energy & political contributions from energy companies; Biden’s plan to cut GHGs; no vaccine for global warming; automakers & court battles.
The Daily Climate, March 17, 2021
Articles include: In the Pacific, global warming disrupted the ecological dance of urchins, sea stars and kelp. Otters help restore balance; DOD reduces its carbon footprint to protect its bases; An urgent question hangs over catastrophic wildfires: What’s in that toxic smoke?; The Texas freeze set off a methane bomb; Wetlands can help prevent property damage and save lives during floods; China’s climate ambitions collide with its coal addiction; Europe seeks alliance with U.S. to tackle aviation emissions; During February’s freeze in Texas, refineries and petrochemical plants released almost 4 million pounds of extra pollutants
Climate change: 5 places where global warming is a security risk
Thomson Reuters Foundation: Climate change: 5 places where global warming is a security risk. As the U.N. Security Council meets to discuss growing threats from a heating planet, here are some places where storms, wildfires and drought are fueling security risks.
From Louisiana’s battle with two hurricanes and an icy polar vortex in the past year to Kenya’s struggle with locusts, drought and floods, climate risks are piling up – and colliding with other threats like COVID-19, making them harder to manage.
“By the time you start to recover from one direct hit, another one is coming,” said Erin Sikorsky, director of the International Military Council on Climate and Security.
As leaders of countries on the U.N. Security Council meet Tuesday to talk about climate pressures and global peace, it is increasingly clear that rising temperatures will fuel instability, from conflict to displacement, she said.
The impacts of a heating planet, such as scarcer water in shared rivers and more failed harvests, can hike existing tensions between countries, said Sikorsky, who is also deputy director of the U.S.-based Center for Climate and Security.
NYT Climate FWD: January 13, 2021
New York Times articles include: Capital Riot Ties to Climate Disinformation; Coronavirus and GHGs; 2020 Tied for hottest year; CIA Spy for the earth.
Study: Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn
CBS News discusses Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn.
Of the many threats from climate change, sea-level rise will most certainly be among the most impactful, making hundreds of thousands of square miles of coastline uninhabitable and potentially displacing over 100 million people worldwide by the end of the century. This threat is a top concern for national security experts because forced migration poses significant risks to international security and stability.
The magnitude of this threat depends heavily on how much the oceans rise in the coming decades. But because of the complex dynamics of massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, exact estimates remain elusive, ranging from just over a foot to several feet above current levels. That disparity is the difference between tens of millions of people forced from their homes or a much more unmanageable hundreds of millions displaced.
Now, a new paper published in the past week warns that if global warming continues at the current pace — reaching high-end warming projections for 2100 — then sea-level rise will probably surpass those projections.
Climate change could create 63 million migrants in South Asia by 2050
Reuters discusses Climate change could create 63 million migrants in South Asia by 2050.
The growing impacts of climate change have already pushed more than 18 million people to migrate within South Asian countries, but that could more than triple if global warming continues on its current path, researchers warned on Friday.
Nearly 63 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 in the region as rising seas and rivers swallow villages, and drought-hit land no longer supports crops, said ActionAid International and Climate Action Network South Asia in a report. [No link provided.]
Why The Navy Is Becoming A Powerful Force For Clean Energy
Civilbeat.org discusses Why The Navy Is Becoming A Powerful Force For Clean Energy. As the pandemic highlights fragile supply chains, the Navy is working with Hawaii to harness the sun and other natural elements for power.
As the Navy looks to the future of its operations in the Pacific, it’s increasingly exploring renewable energy and other new technologies to get the job done. That gives it something in common with Hawaii.
For years the military has opened up space on island bases to local utility companies to develop energy generation projects, including solar and wind farms, that provide power to both civilian customers and the bases themselves.
In October, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Hawaii began soliciting renewable and fossil fuel-based proposals from developers to plan, finance, construct, own, operate and maintain an energy generation system and storage system on about 160 acres of land at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.