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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| The Pentagon’s Weather Nightmare |
| 2004-02-07 |
| Just the intro from a long article that argues that global cooling could trigger massive geopolitical changes, which would make the current WoT just a warm-up for something MUCH bigger. BTW, the article says this is as the result of new research, which is not true. I have a book published over 30 years ago that describes these kinds of abrupt climactic changes. The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues. Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let’s face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon’s strategic planners are grappling with it. The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world’s climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade—like a canoe that’s gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don’t know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies—thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power. Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall’s California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia—it’s easy to see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #2 HI PLEASE MAGA KEEP OFF |
| Posted by: MAGA 2004-09-11 10:59:21 AM |
| #1 I think the DOD should stick to what they do best. Fighting wars. This sounds like a DARPA project in search of money. |
| Posted by: Tancred 2004-2-7 8:49:25 PM |