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Leading Climate Denier Departs National Security Council – Good News, But Hold the Celebrations
According to reports by E&E News and the New York Times, a leading voice for climate denialism at the White House’s National Security Council, William Happer, has stepped down from his position after a failed effort to suppress climate change analysis from U.S. science, intelligence, defense and other agencies. Speaking to Lisa Friedman at the New York Times, Francesco Femia, Co-Founder of the Center for Climate and Security and CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks, stated:
“Someone who denies the existence of nuclear weapons or terrorism would never be given a senior position at the National Security Council, and that should have been true on climate change, which is recognized across parties as a security threat to the United States,” said Francesco Femia, co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan think tank. “So while this is good news, he never should have been there in the first place.”
Rear Admiral Dave Titley on CNN: “This is a blatant attempt…to politicize the security aspect of climate change”
Yesterday, Christiane Amanpour of CNN spoke to Rear Admiral David W. Titley, USN (Ret), Senior Member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board and former Oceanographer of the Navy, about the recent letter signed by 58 senior military and national security officials denouncing the William Happer-led process within the National Security Council to establish an adversarial climate change review panel. When asked why a group of people who aren’t normally vocal critics of Administration policy responded so vigorously to the proposed panel, Admiral Titley stated:
“What concerns so many of us who signed the letter is that this is really a blatant attempt by the National Security Council to politicize the security aspect of climate change.”
Watch a short clip here.
Watch the full interview here.
Release: 58 Senior Military and National Security Leaders Denounce NSC Climate Panel
Washington, DC, March 5, 2019 — In an extraordinary letter published today by the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) and the American Security Project (ASP), a group of 58 senior retired military and national security leaders denounced the National Security Council (NSC) plan to set up an “adversarial” group to undermine the science that informs defense and intelligence threat assessments on climate change. The plan is being driven by vocal climate denier William Happer, who has expertise in neither climate science nor national security. The letter includes former secretaries of defense and state (Hagel and Kerry) former combatant commanders (such as Admiral Locklear and General McChrystal), former intelligence leaders (such as Greg Treverton, past Chair of the National Intelligence Council) and other senior military and national security officials that served in Republican and Democratic administrations stretching back to President Eisenhower. The letter represents an extraordinary rebuke from a very practical community that is normally focused on addressing external threats, not internal politics. This demonstrates how far outside the national security consensus the NSC proposal is. The letter states: (more…)
Conger on NPR: Don’t Create a Blind Spot for the Military on Climate Change
A flooded parking lot at the U.S. Naval Academy – U.S. Navy photo by PH1 Michael Pendergrass
The most recent coverage of the National Security Council’s planned “adversarial” climate group has focused on its potential implications for the U.S. government’s science agencies. John Conger, Director of the Center for Climate and Security, appeared on NPR recently to highlight the ways in which this process of undermining rigorously peer-reviewed climate science, and using that to shape national security policy, can undermine the military’s and the intelligence community’s efforts to address the threat. Take a listen here.