Yesterday, while the House Republican controlled Energy and Power Subcommittee passed the Upton-Inhofe bill to kill greenhouse pollution rules, a commissioned report by the Navy concluded that climate change will present national security and economic challenges:
U.S. allies and their militaries will face national security challenges similar to those faced by the United States and its naval forces as a result of climate change. […] Among the many manifestations of climate change projected for the next several decades, sea-level rise is both highly certain to occur and highly certain to come with economic costs. […] As a result of reduced multiyear ice, the Arctic Ocean is rapidly acquiring the types of maritime activities in the summer months that normally occur elsewhere in the world’s ice-free oceans.
The Department of Defense has also found that global warming poses a threat to national security, and concluded that climate-induced crises could destabilize entire regions and increase the power of terrorist organizations.
The military, as opposed to the climate denying Republicans, have realized that respected scientific bodies across the world have unequivocally concluded that global warming is occuring. Navy Rear Admiral David Tilley, a meteorologist and Navy oceanographer, has said that global warming is real, “an issue that affects our national security,” and the “greatest challenge of the 21st century.”