Tag: national security

How Russia and China are preparing to exploit a warming planet

This Politico article and podcast discusses how Russia and China are preparing to exploit a warming planet. POLITICO’s latest Global Translations podcast explores how climate change is reshaping power dynamics among America’s adversaries.

Hurricanes, floods, and wildfires aside, climate change is delivering another threat: a remaking of geopolitics that stands to empower some of America’s adversaries and rivals.

As Arctic ice melts, Russia stands to gain access to oil and gas fields historically locked beneath northern ice — and is building up capability to launch cruise missiles from newly navigable waters to threaten America’s coastlines.

As polar seaways open up, China is eyeing a new “Polar Silk Road” — shorter shipping routes that could cut weeks off of shipping times from Asia to Europe.

Yale Climate Connections August 16, 2019

This week’s articles include:

  1. ‘What’s the best kind of car for the climate?’
  2. What it means to be human in an age of climate change
  3. Storytelling is fueling climate conversations at Appalachian State University
  4. Architectural history offers clues to low-carbon relief from the heat
  5. The North Atlantic ocean current, which warms northern Europe, may be slowing
  6. Military bases prepare for more extreme weather
  7. Yard signs showcase Miami’s vulnerability to sea-level rise
  8. East Coast vineyards gain respect, but face new challenges from climate change
  9. The Great Basin’s fresh water is drying up, threatening young waterbirds
  10. The Army Corps is using natural barriers to help protect coastal communities

Yale Climate connections 7-26-2019

This week’s articles include:

  1. A small electric plane demonstrates promise, obstacles of climate-friendly air travel
  2. New Koch-funded fossil exhibit at the Smithsonian is curiously quiet on fossil fuels
  3. To save money, Pennsylvania farmer puts his pigs to work
  4. The nonprofit building an army of volunteer climate lobbyists
  5. Why heat waves are a threat to public health
  6. A son of coal country now manages two wind farms
  7. Residents of polluted Albuquerque neighborhood turn farm into green space for the community
  8. A brief introduction to climate change and national security

Study: A brief introduction to climate change and national security

This Yale Climate Connections article discusses climate change and national security. Extreme weather, rising seas, and a melting Arctic could worsen global tensions.

The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, an annual report on security threats to U.S. interests, concludes that “global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.”

Yale Climate Connections, Week of July 12, 2019

This week’s stories include:

  1. How climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous
  2. How to prepare for a hurricane
  3. Did climate change play a role in Western Europe’s June heat wave?
  4. The military is interested in deploying renewable energy in combat zones
  5. Wastewater treatment plants turn waste into energy
  6. Climate pledges by cities, states, and businesses add up, Rocky Mountain Institute finds
  7. Free curriculum helps students identify misleading science claims
  8. Revenue-neutral carbon tax: the climate policy that could appeal to conservatives

Yale Climate Connections – 6-21-2019

This week’s email discusses:

  1. It can happen: Social media helped someone change his mind about climate change
  2. Data from Earth’s past holds a warning for our future under climate change
  3. Climate change is making hiking and climbing less fun
  4. To restore a degraded stream, a Maryland project took a creative, low-carbon approach
  5. Global warming can be frightening. So this teacher focuses on solutions.
  6. Farming While Black’ author Leah Penniman wants to create a just, climate-friendly food system
  7. Why climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’
  8. In ‘Glacier,’ a dance troupe turns melting ice and glaciers into ballet

Sobering Climate Risks

This podcast discusses a report by the the Australia-based Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration. If carbon emissions keep going up until 2030 it will be too late to avoid a ‘hot house’ Earth with a billion climate refugees starting in 2050. These researchers warn the climate is changing faster than politicians and the public are responding, and say interventions on a scale never before seen during peacetime are needed right now. Host Steve Curwood talks with David Spratt, Research Director at the Breakthrough National Centre.

Report: Not all bases factoring extreme weather, climate change into planning, GAO says

This article discusses a GAO report that shows that not all military bases are factoring extreme weather and climate change into planning.

After several bases suffered devastating effects from extreme weather last year, a government report released Wednesday found that the military has not consistently assessed weather risks or incorporated climate change projections into its construction projects.

The Government Accountability Office conducted the study between April 2018 to June 2019 to assess the Defense Department’s progress in developing ways to incorporate the potential for damaging weather into the design of facility projects. The Defense Department has said that climate change is a national security issue and a threat to their operations and installations, according to the report. The study looked at DOD documents and examined 23 bases that had one or more climate vulnerabilities.

Understanding the human side of climate change relocation

This article discusses the human side of climate change relocation.

Climate change is expected to have a striking impact on vulnerable communities, especially in coastal regions where sea-level rise and increased climatic events will make it impossible for some people to remain on their land.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Carteret Islands are facing intense environmental degradation, coastal erosion and food and water insecurity due to anthropogenic climate change and tectonic activity.

Since 1994, the islanders of the seven atolls, lying only 3.9 feet above sea level, have already lost about 50% of their land. Traditional food sources have become scarce, regularly placing the islanders in situations of near famine. The communities also face severe water shortages due to prolonged droughts and sea-level rises that affect their freshwater supply.

Jay Inslee Is Actually Taking the Climate Refugee Crisis Seriously

This article discusses how Democrat Jay Inslee is taking the climate refugee problem seriously in his campaign for President.

In a future where storms are more powerful and entire communities are destroyed, people are going to need somewhere to go. They’re gonna need new homes—and a leader willing to let them in.

Washington State governor and White House hopeful Jay Inslee might be that leader. This week, Inslee became the first U.S. presidential candidate to include immigration policy in a formal climate plan. Released Wednesday, the Global Climate Mobilization Plan details his international policy approach to climate change, including how climate change is exacerbating the world’s refugee crisis and will continue to do so. The plan outlines some of Inslee’s ideas for how to tackle this growing crisis, as well as strategies around international trade and the global economy.

It’s right in line with Inslee’s $9 trillion climate plan to transform the U.S. economy to one revolved around clean energy and equity. He wants to make sure the U.S. isn’t the only one that makes it out of this mess in one piece. And less developed countries are even more vulnerable.