Make Global Warming an Issue
    By Walter Cronkite
    The Philadelphia Enquirer

    Monday 15 March 2004

     The contempt of the Bush administration for environmentalists and their concerns is well known by now. While evidence of man- made environmental damage mounts, the Bush team resists its implications like a defeated army whose rear guard fights off its pursuers as it retreats. That has been especially true of its handling of the most serious of all environmental issues - global warming.

     First, the administration claimed that global warming was the work of liberal hysterics and had been discounted by "more sober scientists." Then, it admitted that it was happening but said there was no proof humans caused it, or could fix it.

     Retreat No. 3 was the White House discovery that, yes, indeed, some of the warming was due to human activity, and we should take steps, say, to reduce emissions, but those steps should be voluntary on the part of industry.

     There are two scientific theories that have been gaining credence in recent years that challenge the sanity of that kind of resistance to fact - and make no mistake about it, global warming is a fact.

     Both theories begin with a phenomenon that is taking place right now. Scientists are beginning to understand climate as a complex interactive system that is affected by everything from the emission of greenhouse gases, to deforestation, to the condition of Arctic and Antarctic glaciers.

     It is a system with a feedback mechanism. For example, higher temperatures lead to the melting of sea ice, which exposes more water to the sun. The water absorbs more solar energy, which accelerates global warming, and so on. Scientists fear that such feedbacks might produce a self-sustaining and accelerating warming that is beyond human control.

     The second theory goes by the name of Abrupt Climate Change. It suggests that catastrophic results of global warming might not occur gradually, as most have expected, but quite suddenly - within a few years. This theory also starts with the melting of glaciers and sea ice, but involves the dilution of seawater's salinity - or salt content - that results. That salt content is a key element in an ocean current that takes heat from the tropics northward and cold water southward and in the process moderates temperatures in the Eastern United States and much of Europe.

     The collapse of this so-called conveyor could, in the worst case, produce a new ice age. The best case would give us severe winters, increasingly violent storms, flooding, drought and high winds around the globe, disrupting food production and energy supplies and raising sea levels high enough to flood coastal cities and make them unlivable.

     These are not predictions but real possibilities - far more possible today than scientists had previously believed. And while the politicos in the White House continue to stick their heads in the sand, some at the Pentagon have taken on the task of studying the national- security implications of Abrupt Climate Change.

     What they came up with was a world whose "carrying capacity" - the number of people the globe can sustain - is being progressively lowered, a world where war becomes the rule, not the exception, and where wars are no longer fought for ideological, religious, or geopolitical reasons - but for resources and survival. This unclassified Pentagon study, completed last fall, has been released to several news organizations and was highlighted in the Feb. 9 edition of Fortune magazine.

     One thing we have to keep in mind: While these might only be worst-case scenarios, many of the conditions and processes scientists think might trigger them already are present or under way. Global warming is at least as important as gay marriage or the cost of Social Security. And if it is not seriously debated in the general election, it will measure the irresponsibility of the entire political class. This is an issue that cannot, and must not, be ignored any longer.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
 

Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004
The Observer

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

    Abrupt global climate changes will lead to wars over food, water and oil and leave the earth in a new ice age with raging seas, storms and wind, according to a Pentagon-commissioned study.
    The report, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and its Implications for U.S. National Security," concludes that "substantial global warming" could lead to a breakdown of warm ocean currents caused by reduced salt in the ocean.
    That, in turn, would produce a drop in global temperatures of as much as 6 degrees, creating catastrophic cold weather and environmental calamities. And, as human populations struggle over the changes, "tensions could mount around the world, leading to two fundamental strategies: defensive and offensive," the report states.
    It also presents a scenario where global warming through 2010 is followed by a major deep freeze in at least the Northern Hemisphere that would last from a decade to several thousand years.
    The new colder, unstable weather would pose new threats to national security.
    "Military confrontation may be triggered by a desperate need for natural resources such as energy, food and water rather than by conflicts over ideology, religion or national honor," the report says. "The shifting motivation for confrontation would alter which countries are most vulnerable and the existing warning signs for security threats."
    A Pentagon spokesman said the report is a "speculative" look at the future.
    For the United States, the report suggests the country would become a "fortress" committed to using resources to feed its people, shoring up borders against starving migrants seeking entry and managing world tensions.
    China would be faced with "mega-droughts" and famines.
    "Widespread famine causes chaos and internal struggles as a cold and hungry China peers jealously across the Russian and western borders at energy resources," the report says.
    Europe would be hit hardest by quick climate changes that would leave the continent "more like Siberia," the report says.
    "Europe struggles to stem emigration out of Scandinavian and northern European nations in search of warmth, as well as immigration from hard-hit countries in Africa and elsewhere," the report states.
    Energy-starved Japan would likely seize the large oil and gas reserves in nearby Sakhalin island.
    The report stated that nuclear-arms proliferation will increase as a result of weather changes in what it called a "world of warring states."
    "Futurists" Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network, a consulting group, produced the report for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment.
    The report recommends improving scientific research in predicting climate change, researching nations' vulnerability to abrupt climate change, and better preparing to respond to climate change.
    Abrupt climate change will require "new forms of security agreements" dealing with energy, food and water, according to the report.
    "In short, while the United States itself will be relatively better off and with more adaptive capacity, it will find itself in a world where Europe will be struggling internally, large numbers of refugees [will be] washing up on its shores and Asia [will be] in serious crisis over food and water," the report states. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life."
    

Many people would consider this Pentagon report to be very newsworthy.  Has anyone seen it on cable or network news?  Is the news oligarchy really independent and acting in the public interest, or for the few?   FCC/Michael Powell - Do your Job: Regulate the media and Stop further consolidation!