2004: Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
Posted by Michael on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008
From Guardian (UK):
“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 threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism…“
I remember hearing a little something about this then, but you may remember February of 2004 the war in Iraq was beginning to be seen as a debacle.
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon’s dire warnings could no longer be ignored.
‘Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It’s going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush’s single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,’ added Watson.
Seems clear who he listened to.
One last depressing bit:
So dramatic are the report’s scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush’s stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.
ah, if only.
