Pentagon report on global warming

[StefanS]

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.


The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.


'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'


The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.


The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.


An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

full article

 

[epicstruggle]

As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.

full article

I guess we wont have to wait too long to see if this is true or a plate of bull.

later,
epic

 

[DemoCoder]

So Britain's got only 16 years for a mega climate shift to occur? Seems bogus.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

So Britain's got only 16 years for a mega climate shift to occur? Seems bogus.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/bigchill.shtml

Massive climate change in UK and all over the world in 20-50 years as the Atlantic conveyer stops transporting the Gulf Stream from the tropics to Western Europe.

 

[DemoCoder]

yeah yeah, this was supposed to happen by 2000, per reports in 1970s. We've also got supervolcanoes, a potential massive undersea landslide on the continental shelf, potential magnetic field reversal, ad infinitum.

I'm not interested in the most dire scenarios the global doomsters can project. I'm interested in what is likely to happen. People who run political causes or work off of grants have a vested interest in taking a range of scenarios that could unfold and promoting only the ones at the extremes.

If NASA was run that way, everytime an asteroid came near the planet, they'd predict global catastrophe unless we poured 50 billion into asteroid defense projects.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

If NASA was run that way, everytime an asteroid came near the planet, they'd predict global catastrophe unless we poured 50 billion into asteroid defense projects.

If I was given 10 cents for everytime the media cry over a potential collision between earth and an asteroid I would be richer than Bill Gates.

The potential for world wide destruction is always there, it just so happens that we are very lucky.

 

[London Geezer]

And maybe most people missed the point in this and other reports, where it says that the whole world will be heated up by global warming, EXCEPT Britain, which will get colder! HAHAHA Hilarious! We were going to have nice weather, but NO, Britain will get COLDER!!! I just find it hilarious!!

We are cursed to live in cold and rain! Even when even Siberia will get warmer!!

 

[PatrickL]

wow did not know that only europe had cities near water ....

 

[epicstruggle]

And maybe most people missed the point in this and other reports, where it says that the whole world will be heated up by global warming, EXCEPT Britain, which will get colder! HAHAHA Hilarious! We were going to have nice weather, but NO, Britain will get COLDER!!! I just find it hilarious!!

We are cursed to live in cold and rain! Even when even Siberia will get warmer!!

lol, that hilarious.

later,
epic

 

[London Geezer]

wow did not know that only europe had cities near water ....

Yeah. And trees. And hairy armpits. And lots of pigeons.

 

[RussSchultz]

Here's some interesting insight into the article. It isn't, of course, what the Guardian is making it out to be.

Oops, forgot the link:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/000722.html

 

[DemoCoder]

if london freezes over, we can always offer the brits Nebraska. I'd sell it to them for a few hundred mil.

 

[digitalwanderer]

if london freezes over, we can always offer the brits Nebraska. I'd sell it to them for a few hundred mil.

There is no such state called "Nebraska" in the US, that's just an urban legend.

 

[London Geezer]

if london freezes over, we can always offer the brits Nebraska. I'd sell it to them for a few hundred mil.

There is no such state called "Nebraska" in the US, that's just an urban legend.

Wasn't that one of the craters of the Moon?

 

[nutball]

I'm not interested in the most dire scenarios the global doomsters can project. I'm interested in what is likely to happen.

No-one knows for sure what's going to happen, that's the problem (yeah, not even the oh-so-clever wise-boys at The Pentagon). The problem with the whole debate is that it's about an ill-defined risk (probability) of ill-defined consequences if you accept the current models.

Too much scope for politics and personal philosophy to ever achieve a consensus. The only way to know for sure is to do nothing and carry on like we are. Then we'll know for sure.

If NASA was run that way, everytime an asteroid came near the planet, they'd predict global catastrophe unless we poured 50 billion into asteroid defense projects.

Ummm... I think you'll find that's the military and the poor cash-starved aerospace industry who are over-blowing asteroid fears. And the media too, don't forget the media.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

yeah yeah, this was supposed to happen by 2000, per reports in 1970s. We've also got supervolcanoes, a potential massive undersea landslide on the continental shelf, potential magnetic field reversal, ad infinitum.

I'm not interested in the most dire scenarios the global doomsters can project. I'm interested in what is likely to happen. People who run political causes or work off of grants have a vested interest in taking a range of scenarios that could unfold and promoting only the ones at the extremes.

The difference is that the salinity decrease in the North Atlantic (due to global warming) is not a theory - it is being measured and is quite drastic.

All the things you have quoted above are rare occurances, but they have happened as proved by the geological records. When they do happen, they have major impacts on the climate of the Earth and the life living on it at the time.

What next? You going to tell us the hole in the ozone layer "doesn't matter" even though we've seen it, measured it, and *made* it? Are you just waiting for everyone to die of cancer?

 

[Joe DeFuria]

All the things you have quoted above are rare occurances, but they have happened as proved by the geological records. When they do happen, they have major impacts on the climate of the Earth and the life living on it at the time.

No question. The hard point is supply any credible evidence that we are doing anything at all to encourage these "rare occurances" to happen.

Large asteriods impacting the Earth's surface are also a rare and documented, occurance...and that can sure as hell affect the earth's climate....but I wouldn't exactly be concerned that running my AC is pulling some more asteroids this way...

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

No question. The hard point is supply any credible evidence that we are doing anything at all to encourage these "rare occurances" to happen.

Large asteriods impacting the Earth's surface are also a rare and documented, occurance...and that can sure as hell affect the earth's climate....but I wouldn't exactly be concerned that running my AC is pulling some more asteroids this way...

The problem is that the earth is a very complex system where many things are affected by many other things, and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make much sense until we've done several years of research. Look at how long it took us to make the link between ozone depletion and the disproportionately large contribution of airline exhaust chemicals high in the atmosphere.

Another example is for many years people asked where all this excess CO2 is going to. We should have more CO2 and be warmer than we are according to the calculations. It's only recently it's been discovered that the the Amazon and other large rainforest areas are acting as CO2 sinks, and this is slowing the expected rates of global warming. Of course when the temperature does change enough and those forests die, the resulting much larger release of CO2 in turn has other knock on effects. We will get a much bigger version of a historical even that has happened several times before in the earth's climate cycles. Human activity has pushed these natural cycles harder and faster than they've ever happened before, short of sudden massive extinction events like supervolcanoes or asteroid strikes.

The evidence is there, it's just that we are still joining-the-dots to link it all together, because we've only been doing that research for a relatively few number of years. No government wants to admit to it because they would have to make their citizens make drastic changes to their lifestyles (especially in rich western countries) and there is no economic alternative to the huge amounts of energy we wish to consume in our everyday lives.

Until we can invent some of the "magic" technologies like nanotechnology, clean fusion or room temp superconductors (and the associated social changes these will bring about), I can't see any government taking any kind of true preventative action until things are very desperate indeed - by which point it is probably going to be too late.

For instance, you can melt a chunk of the Arctic ice and stop the Atlantic Conveyer in a few tens or couple of hundred years, but it may take a few thousands of years to get it going again as it's a delicate balance of salinity, warm and cold water, and corilois force which we are only now beginning to understand.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

The problem is that the earth is a very complex system where many things are affected by many other things, and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make much sense until we've done several years of research.

That's exactly the problem, and "several years of research" is still woefully inadequate in trying to predict macro environmental changes.

Look at how long it took us to make the link between ozone depletion and the disproportionately large contribution of airline exhaust chemicals high in the atmosphere.

What link? At best, I'd guess there is a correlation. There's also likely a just as "convincing" correlation between ozone depletion, and my receding hair-line.

It's only recently it's been discovered that the the Amazon and other large rainforest areas are acting as CO2 sinks, and this is slowing the expected rates of global warming.

It's amazing how when "doom and gloom" doesn't happen at "expected rates", you can count on two things happening:

1) Models didn't account for some other "Emotionally charged environmental issue" that's keeping things in check

2) Since that issue is also threatened...just wait until THAT goes away...doom on an even larger scale.

The evidence is there, it's just that we are still joining-the-dots to link it all together,

The dots can be "joined" anyway you like.

No government wants to admit to it because they would have to make their citizens make drastic changes to their lifestyles (especially in rich western countries) and there is no economic alternative to the huge amounts of energy we wish to consume in our everyday lives.

Not exactly true...governments that would force OTHER governments to make drastic changes in lifestyle, have no problem "admitting it."

I can't see any government taking any kind of true preventative action until things are very desperate indeed - by which point it is probably going to be too late.

Strage that when this philospohy is applied to something much more tangible like terrorism, it's dismissed as "war mongering."

For instance, you can melt a chunk of the Arctic ice and stop the Atlantic Conveyer in a few tens or couple of hundred years, but it may take a few thousands of years to get it going again as it's a delicate balance of salinity, warm and cold water, and corilois force which we are only now beginning to understand.

So, while we understand little of this...we do realize that we could destroy it quickly, but not "get it going again" for an eternity?

 

[nutball]

I can't see any government taking any kind of true preventative action until things are very desperate indeed - by which point it is probably going to be too late.

Strage that when this philospohy is applied to something much more tangible like terrorism, it's dismissed as "war mongering."

Funny how taking preventative measures to prevent some nebulous "threat" which (at some ill-defined point in the future) will do... something... horrible-but-which-we-aren't-sure-what-it-is-but-it-will-be-really-nasty-and-it's-going-to-wipe-us-out-HONEST is imperative when it involves the use of military force in other peoples countries, but less acceptable when it has an impact on the way-of-life at home.

Swings and roundabouts.