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Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier for Instability: Bloomberg
Sherri Goodman on Bloomberg TV, September 20, 2019
On Friday September 20, Bloomberg TV interviewed the Center for Climate and Security’s Senior Strategist, Sherri Goodman, to discuss the role of climate change as a “threat multiplier” for instability – an apt term coined by the CNA’s Military Advisory Board back in 2007 under Sherri Goodman’s leadership. During the interview, Sherri was asked what her number one recommendation would be if she were still in her prior role as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security, and channeling the Center for Climate and Security’s Responsibility to Prepare framework, she stated:
My number one recommendation would be to incorporate this [climate change] into every aspect of defense planning, policy and programming, so that we are clear-eyed about what risks we face – the unprecedented risks – but also the unprecedented opportunities to seize the technology advantages, to move to lower carbon energy futures, and at the same time to take advantage of predictive analytics that will help us better understand these risks where they are occurring, and to be able to address them on a closer real-time basis.
The full interview is worth a listen (below and here).
NPR on Climate and Security Scenarios with Francesco Femia
An aerial view of Offutt Air Force Base affected by major flood damage, March 17, 2019 (U.S. Air Force photo by TSgt. Rachelle Blake)
In yesterday’s episode of NPR’s On Point, Meghna Chakrabarti interviewed journalist Emily Atkin and Francesco Femia, the Council on Strategic Risks’ CEO and Co-Founder of the Center for Climate and Security, to discuss the implications of climate change for global instability and conflict. The show built upon an article in the New Republic by Emily Atkin, The Blood-Dimmed Tide, exploring a catastrophic 2100 climate scenario. Francesco touched on a number of topics, including climate risks to military installations, the growing bipartisan U.S. national security consensus on climate change and security (including across the intelligence and defense community), as well as the strategic benefits of U.S. investments in climate prevention and preparation (and conversely, the strategic negatives, vis-a-vis its competitors and adversaries, of doing nothing). Listen to the On Point episode here. The segment with Francesco Femia starts at 25:05, but the full show is worth a listen.
U.S. Department of Defense Funds Research on Capturing Water from Fog
Marine fog rolls in at Half Moon Bay, California
By Marc Kodack
Ensuring sufficient potable water supplies are available for its military and humanitarian operations, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will be challenged to meet these potable water needs as climate change and its effects on water supply are felt around the world. To help address this, DoD awarded a grant to California State University, Monterrey Bay to test the efficiencies of capturing water, via mesh-based devices, from “fog events” along coastal California. The grant was from DoD’s Research and Education Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the Minority-Serving Institutions. A mesh device produces potable water that can be used by people and for irrigation. The research will also “expand knowledge about the generation and dissipation of fog” using existing droplet measuring technology.
What Recent Homeland Security Analysis Says About Climate Risks to Military Communities
By Marc Kodack
As we begin to assess the full extent of the damage and lives lost caused by Hurricane Dorian, it is worth looking at recent assessments of community resilience commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security to help shape how we better prepare in the future. This includes making sure that the military communities that keep our bases operating are resilient to climate and non-climate related disasters. Military installations located across the U.S. have recently been affected by significant climate-influenced disaster events (and non-climate disasters) that presented serious risks to military communities, and have cost billions of dollars in facility and infrastructure repairs, and. These events include earthquakes in July 2019 at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California, that resulted in the installation being in a “mission unsustainable” state for multiple days sustaining an estimated $2.5 to $5 billion in damages; severe flooding on the Missouri River resulting from record melting snow upriver exacerbated by a bomb cyclone in March 2019 which effected a third of Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, with an estimated $650 million for “operations, maintenance, construction, and simulator costs;” and Hurricane Michael in October 2018 which struck Florida and Tyndall Air Force Base damaging every building on the installation resulting in $4.7 billion in damages (see also John Conger’s article on his eye-opening visit to Tyndall about 6 months after the hurricane hit). (more…)