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Water and Sabotage in Paradise: Greece’s Hidden Climate Conflict
Greece’s islands might seem like unlikely settings for a wild years-long sabotage campaign, but the explosions tell a different story.
In late July, a person or persons unknown detonated a bomb alongside the undersea Salamina-to-Aegina water pipeline in Greece, leaving nothing but traces of a fuse and leaking freshwater.
Two years earlier, in January 2020, other – or possibly the same – suspects punctured that pipeline in dozens of places with a drill. On that occasion, they set back the completion of the then-under construction project by more than a year.
On Mykonos, Paros, and a good number of other idyllic islands, desalination plants and other forms of water infrastructure have suffered repeated and ‘inexplicable’ breakdowns in recent years. Though impossible to prove malicious intention in many instances, desalination technicians say that not even subpar maintenance can explain away this volume of problems.
(more…)Australian Defence Force: Aligning Climate Security Strategy with US & UK
Australian peacekeepers unload engineering equipment. Photo by, Australian Civil-Military Centre
The Australian Climate Council recently released a report: “Be Prepared: Climate Change, Security and Australia’s Defence Force.” The report provides a good overview of climate change risks to national security and adds a critical look at how the Australian Defence Force is (and is not) preparing for those risks, and how this compares to US and UK defense forces. The report draws from an international team of reviewers including CCS advisory board member Rear Admiral Dave Titley USN (Ret), as well as Professor Jon Barnett, Professor Alan Dupont, Captain Leo Goff, USN (ret.), Dr. Liz Hanna, and Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti RN (ret.). (more…)
Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Climate Risks to Installations
Naval District Washington (NDW) officials present their smart grid pilot to John Conger (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kiona Miller/Released)
On March 11, 2015, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on “Military Construction, Environmental, Energy, and Base Closure Programs.” The testimony of John C. Conger, who is “performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense Energy, Installations and Environment,” is worth particular notice, as it directly addresses climate risks to the Department of Defense’s mission, and outlines prudent steps DoD it taking to prepare for and mitigate those risks. (more…)
New Research: Food Riots, Governance and Climate Change
Protesters marching in Cairo, “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice By, Mariam Soliman from Cairo, Egypt
This is a cross-post from New Security Beat by Cullen Hendrix
*We draw special attention to the conclusion of the article (emphasis added):
Our research suggests that reducing urban biases, like food subsidies, may be good pro-poor policy, given the continued concentration of poverty in the countryside, but it carries political risks. Thus, developing country governments face a tradeoff in pursuing two separate but linked definitions of food security: food security as a component of human security, where pro-poor policies may be the best answer, and food security as a component of national security, where urban interests seem the most pressing.