An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security
Extrait for the globalwarming awareness2007 site :
When most people think about climate change, they imagine gradual increases in
temperature and only marginal changes in other climatic conditions, continuing
indefinitely or even leveling off at some time in the future. The conventional wisdom
is that modern civilization will either adapt to whatever weather conditions we face
and that the pace of climate change will not overwhelm the adaptive capacity of
society, or that our efforts such as those embodied in the Kyoto protocol will be
sufficient to mitigate the impacts. The IPCC documents the threat of gradual climate
change and its impact to food supplies and other resources of importance to humans
will not be so severe as to create security threats. Optimists assert that the benefits
from technological innovation will be able to outpace the negative effects of climate
change.
Climatically, the gradual change view of the future assumes that agriculture will
continue to thrive and growing seasons will lengthen. Northern Europe, Russia, and
North America will prosper agriculturally while southern Europe, Africa, and
Central and South America will suffer from increased dryness, heat, water shortages,
and reduced production. Overall, global food production under many typical climate
scenarios increases. This view of climate change may be a dangerous act of selfdeception,
as increasingly we are facing weather related disasters -- more hurricanes,
monsoons, floods, and dry-spells – in regions around the world.
Weather-related events have an enormous impact on society, as they influence food
supply, conditions in cities and communities, as well as access to clean water and
energy. For example, a recent report by the Climate Action Network of Australia
projects that climate change is likely to reduce rainfall in the rangelands, which could
lead to a 15 per cent drop in grass productivity. This, in turn, could lead to
reductions in the average weight of cattle by 12 per cent, significantly reducing beef
supply. Under such conditions, dairy cows are projected to produce 30% less milk,
and new pests are likely to spread in fruit-growing areas. Additionally, such
conditions are projected to lead to 10% less water for drinking. Based on model
projections of coming change conditions such as these could occur in several food
producing regions around the world at the same time within the next 15-30years,
challenging the notion that society’s ability to adapt will make climate change
manageable. With over 400 million people living in drier, subtropical, often over-populated and
economically poor regions today, climate change and its follow-on effects pose a
severe risk to political, economic, and social stability. In less prosperous regions,
where countries lack the resources and capabilities required to adapt quickly to more
severe conditions, the problem is very likely to be exacerbated. For some countries,
climate change could become such a challenge that mass emigration results as the
desperate peoples seek better lives in regions such as the United States that have the
resources to adaptation.
Because the prevailing scenarios of gradual global warming could cause effects like
the ones described above, an increasing number of business leaders, economists,
policy makers, and politicians are concerned about the projections for further change
and are working to limit human influences on the climate. But, these efforts may not
be sufficient or be implemented soon enough.
Rather than decades or even centuries of gradual warming, recent evidence suggests
the possibility that a more dire climate scenario may actually be unfolding. This is
why GBN is working with OSD to develop a plausible scenario for abrupt climate
change that can be used to explore implications for food supply, health and disease,
commerce and trade, and their consequences for national security.
While future weather patterns and the specific details of abrupt climate change
cannot be predicted accurately or with great assurance, the actual history of climate
change provides some useful guides. Our goal is merely to portray a plausible
scenario, similar to one which has already occurred in human experieince, for which
there is reasonable evidence so that we may further explore potential implications for
United States national security...
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