Home » Posts tagged 'training'
Tag Archives: training
The Climate and Security Podcast: Episode 7 with Joan VanDervort
Welcome back to The Climate and Security Podcast!
In this episode Joan VanDervort, Member of the Center for Climate and Security Advisory Board and former Deputy Director for Ranges, Sea and Airspace in the U.S. Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness), talks about how climate change impacts military training and readiness. Joan pulls from her extensive career in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to explain how training is the cornerstone of readiness. Climate factors, like intense rainfall impacts on infrastructure and increased heat causing trainee and soldier hospitalizations, pose serious risks to training and ultimately to the ability to successfully carry out military missions. Joan also discuss how the DoD tracks the migration of diseases as well as the health of military personal going into combat. Tune into this episode for insights into military readiness that can only come from decades of experience as a civil servant.
Army Training and Doctrine Command Says Climate Change Will Shape Future Operating Environment

U.S. Army Service members return toU.S. Virgin Islands to assist with disaster relief operations in response to hurricanes Irma and Maria, Sept. 23, 2017
By John Conger
As the U.S. Army prepares troops for the future of warfare, it has, without question, a lot on its plate. Complicating that picture for the Army is climate change. The Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), which as its name implies is responsible for overseeing training and operational doctrine development for the Army, affirmed at a recent conference that it sees climate change as a key factor influencing how and where the Army will fight.
As reported by the Army Times: (more…)
New U.S. Assessment on Climate and Health: More Research Needed on Security Implications

Philippine and U.S. service members learn to identify heat stroke (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Abbey M. Perria)
By Christine Parthemore, Executive Director, The Center for Climate and Security
This week, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released an extensive new volume on the health impacts of climate change. The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment is focused on the American population in general, but just looking at the section titles it is easy to see how many of the specific impacts could require special attention for the security forces based in the United States. Climate change effects that could bring new challenges to the health of U.S. military personnel, their families, and their communities — for example, via temperature-related illness, new patterns of vector-borne diseases, and air and water quality changes — receive extensive treatment. While security issues are not the focus of this assessment, it makes clear that a natural progression would be to analyze potential impacts specifically for U.S. armed forces and their work, including training conditions and force health protection needs.
**UPDATE**
A text box in chapter 9 of the assessment highlights these types of challenges for the U.S. armed forces, noting that “key research questions remain” but that the Department of Defense is on the case. Indeed, a natural progression of this extensive assessment will be to analyze potential impacts specifically for U.S. armed forces and their work, including training conditions and force health protection needs.