The changing climate of war and peace

While voices in the political world remain locked in inertia, alternately debating and decrying the science of global warming itself, top military leaders and defense think-tanks have been taking it seriously.

Terrorism is a malevolent problem, but climate change, observers say, is a malignant problem, and the world can ignore neither.

The American military has been examining future implications of global warming as a threat to peace, hoping to head off a world fighting over reduced natural resources, food and water, and conflicts brought on by population locations created by droughts, floods, and diseases.

At a forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center in May 2007, eleven retired three- and four-start generals and admirals, brought together by the 66-year-old non-profit Center for Naval Analyses Corp, released a report called “National Security and Climate Change” that said flatly that global climate change is a serious national security concern.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer