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by Sean Mowbray (Pacific Standard)  While the Trump administration has largely rejected climate change as an issue, the Department of Defense and Congress have identified it as a major potential threat to national security.  —  … On the other hand, the Republican-dominated Congress has affirmed that climate change is a prominent national security threat and mandated that the Department of Defense (DOD) look closely at how climate change is going to affect key installations, while also addressing the need to boost the military’s finances considerably to deal with global warming threats. When Trump’s national security strategy—announced in January—erased climate change as a threat to U.S. security, that decision drew the ire of a bipartisan group of congressional legislators.

As a result of this dichotomy, the DOD has emerged as an unlikely champion of climate action in the Trump government, with the Pentagon declaring emphaticallythat a rapidly warming world is bringing with it alarming security risks ranging from rising sea level (which threatens naval bases such as Norfolk, Virginia, the largest in the world), to the “mother of all risks“—unpredictable and worsening political instability around the globe brought by climate chaos.

Indeed, Trump’s own secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, was hailed before taking office as the “lone green hope,” due to his recognition of global warming’s clear and present danger.

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However, the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) does something Trump probably doesn’t want it to do: it clearly designates climate change as a “direct threat” to the national security of the U.S. and orders the military to submit a “report on vulnerabilities to military installations and combatant commander requirements resulting from climate change over the next 30 years.”

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First and foremost in the military mind is the Pentagon’s mission: to defend the U.S. and its national interest. Seen within this framework, climate change is viewed as a “threat multiplier,” rather than a distinct, standalone issue.

“Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration,” potentially leading to civil strife and war, reads the grim forecast outlined by the 2010 DOD Quadrennial Defense Review. The Pentagon isn’t alone in its predictions; a report from the American Security Project says that 70 percent of the world’s nations have assessed climate change as a threat to their national security.

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A 2011 U.S. Navy report found that a three-foot rise in sea level would endanger 128 DOD installations, valued collectively at around $100 billion.  READ MORE

Bipartisan Letter Signed by 106 Members of Congress Urges Trump to Re-Insert Climate Change into National Security Strategy

Pentagon Drops Climate From National Defense Strategy In Retreat From Bush-Era Policy (Huffington Post)

Excerpt from Huffington Post:  The Pentagon scrubbed its latest National Defense Strategy of all references to climate change, an Orwellian rhetorical shift away from a scientific reality at an agency that has long avoided the issue’s politics.