Military report: Climate change is the enemy, not lack of energy independence

As President Obama prepares to deliver a major speech on climate change, a report by two military agencies has quietly chastised U.S. political leaders for failing to realize that global warming is the enemy, not a lack of energy independence.

According to Inside Climate News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning website, the new reportfrom the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses and the London-based Royal United Services Institute, two of the NATO alliance's front-line strategy centers, recommends putting more effort into fighting global warming than securing reliable supplies of fossil fuels.

Here’s a taste of the website’s coverage of this largely overlooked report:

“The authors call the habitual American fixation on winning energy independence through expanded North American production of oil and natural gas ‘misguided.’ They say the ‘only sustainable solution’ to the problem of energy insecurity is not through more drilling, but through energy efficiency and renewable fuels, like biofuels, to replace oil.

“… And in blunt language, they criticize American policymakers and legislators for refusing to accept the ‘robust’ scientific evidence that emissions of carbon dioxide are already causing harmful global warming, and for refusing to take actions that, if taken swiftly, could ward off its worst effects.

"’Political leaders, including many in the United States, refuse to accept short-term costs to address long-term dangers even though the future costs of responding to disasters after they occur will be far greater,’ said their report, published this month.”

Inside Climate News notes that for several years,  climate changes caused by burning fossil fuels have been viewed as an overwhelming national security threat by some within the Pentagon and by growing number in all national security circles. In 2007, a report from CNA's military advisory board called climate change a "threat multiplier." 

In 2008, a formal National Intelligence Assessment found that climate change poses a serious threat to national security and long-term global stability. 

The Department of Defense's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, a major planning document, warned that climate change may fuel conflict, put new strains on military forces operating in the field, and cause damage to military bases, especially ports exposed to rising seas and intense storms.

In a broader sense, experts believe the floods, droughts, famine and natural disasters associated with climate change will lead to new military conflicts, military incursions across sovereign borders, and overall global instability.