Pentagon warns of global climate catastrophe

Jay GW

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Pentagon warns of environmental catastrophe

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.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html
 
As someone who considers the threat of global warming very seriously, I have to note that we have heard dire warnings of catastrophe in the medium-term before and they have not proven true...

But if it is true... I hate to throw it partisan, but I believe in warning about leadership folly when I see it or anticipate it...

I honestly think that this administration's approach, if they knew and believed this to be true, would be to put up their proverbial dukes and dare anyone to become disorderly on their watch, so to speak... go through a military buildup, and try to "beat" everyone during the oncoming chaotic period. I anticipate they would begin down this road even while there was still a chance to forestall the catastrophe by taking serious, global action on the environmental threat...

I seriously am worried about this... for those that support Bush... does his history indicate anything different?
 
I just wanted to note that I would need more evidence of this secret report besides just the Guardian's word on it. How did they get it?

With the world at stake, if I had my hands on a document like this and was considering leaking it, I wouldn't "leak" it at all. I'd go right on the 6:00 news and announce who I was and who I worked for, and present my findings. If it were all true, what could anyone do to me that would compare to the millions of lives I could save by blowing the whistle, LOUDLY?
 
Yep. That's the same old humancentric global warming crap that's been going around since, I don't know, the '70s or so? Or was it global cooling back then?

BTW, Southern California has been having temperatures 10 degrees below the norm the past week or so. Must be global warming. :p
 
Yes- it was "The Fifth Winter" and "The Coming Ice Age" in the 1970s.

Are we heading away from an ice age or towards one?
Both.

When?
Insufficient data.

Are we all doomed?
Yes.

To what?
Insufficient data.

We don't know the answers. We don't know most of the questions. We know prayer won't help. Or crystals.

Tell you one thing- when a military establishment comes up with a panic scenario that (probably) advocates a military build-up, and they suppress it and it "leaks" to a British newspaper, I smell a dead rat.

Hey- I'm paranoid. But I'm paranoid about people , which is only sane.

Anyway. I was reading these end of the world scenario stories in the 60's. By Norton and Wyndham and Christopher and Clarke. Tell me one I haven't heard.
 
This is old news. It was reported a good few months back.

The question now is the same as then. What significance is this report? It simply postulates what IF we had a climate disaster. However, the point of contention is ARE WE GOING TO HAVE a climate disaster.

It is as much value as the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

[sarcasm] Oh no, the New York will be engulfed by a massive tidal wave, we'd better do something now!![/sarcasm]
 
Drooper said-
"[sarcasm] Oh no, the New York will be engulfed by a massive tidal wave, we'd better do something now!![/sarcasm]"

Might I suggest puuting about 100 tons of detergent in the east river and giving the whole place a good rinse?
 
Soapy Sam said:
Are we all doomed?
Yes
Click to expand...



How so? If it's more than a century or so in the future we can use GE to adapt ourselves to Ice Age or Jurassic conditions; and selfcontained off world colonies.
 
SkepticJ said:
How so? If it's more than a century or so in the future we can use GE to adapt ourselves to Ice Age or Jurassic conditions; and selfcontained off world colonies.
Click to expand...

Massive asteroid impact

nuclear or whatever-replaces-nuclear war that spreads

Faulty (intentionally or accidentally) GE that causes some unsurvivable mutation (i.e.-a dominant gene that produces sterility, far-fetched but a possibility none-the-less).

Sun going nova (hey, it may take a while, but we are eventually doomed)

In any case, we as individuals are doomed. Jsut a matter of when and how :)
 
Huntsman said:
Sun going nova (hey, it may take a while, but we are eventually doomed)
Click to expand...
Technically, I believe the Sun is destined to be a Red Giant not a supernova. Although I could be wrong.
 
Be it Global Warming, the coming Ice Age, terrorism, the eruption of a super-volcano (for which we are due), a freak comet/asteroid (for which we are also due), it is time to get off this planet. Or rather, it is time to spread our eggs from this basket.

As the politicians like to emptily say: "It is time to invest in our future!".
 
Huntsman said:
Massive asteroid impact
Faulty (intentionally or accidentally) GE that causes some unsurvivable mutation (i.e.-a dominant gene that produces sterility, far-fetched but a possibility none-the-less).

Sun going nova (hey, it may take a while, but we are eventually doomed)
Click to expand...


We aren't due another impact like that for probably 100,000 years or more. With that kind of warning we could dismantle the asteroid or use a mass driver or some other as yet unimagined tech to slowly push it into the sun.
#2: use a virus to inject a gene that cancels out the sterility gene.(I think we have the tech to do this already) Or use nanobots to just take it out and repair the DNA.
#3: The sun isn't that kind of star. It will die a slow death. We have about a billion(1,000,000,000) years before it becomes brighter and in about 5 billion years it will be a Red Giant. To put that in perspective; The Cambrian Explosion happened about 600 million years ago(600,000,000) Lots of time. Quite the pessimist aren't you?
 
DanishDynamite said:
terrorism
Click to expand...


I don't fear terrorists. I'm far more likely to be killed by lightning. When is Bush going to start a War on Lightnin'? Gotta get them tairist electrons.
 
SkepticJ said:
We aren't due another impact like that for probably 100,000 years or more. With that kind of warning we could dismantle the asteroid or use a mass driver or some other as yet unimagined tech to slowly push it into the sun.
Click to expand...
There isn't a schedule, it could happen tomorrow (relatively speaking).
SkepticJ said:
#2: use a virus to inject a gene that cancels out the sterility gene.(I think we have the tech to do this already) Or use nanobots to just take it out and repair the DNA.
Click to expand...
Nanobots do not yet exist. We do not yet have the technology to cancel out the sterility gene

Of course we'll probably find some other way to mess things up for ourselves by then.
 
Originally posted by RichardR [/i]
Technically, I believe the Sun is destined to be a Red Giant not a supernova. Although I could be wrong.
Click to expand...

True, but it's pretty much the same in the end. We get bathed in extreme-temperature plasma.

SkepticJ:

I wasn't saying any scenario was plausible, but there are many possibilities. Eventually Earth will be gone, and we will be gone personally in any case. No one lives forever and all :)

As to the asteroid impact, that's a common misconception. They don't occur in any sort of cycle. You hear people say that we're due one in such and such time; but that's simply an abstract from the odds. A better way to state it is that there's a 1 in 1,000,000 chance each year of a planet-killer (rough estimate, don't recall the exact probabilities). In any case, if one were coming right now, we'd be pretty well toast.

And all yoru solutions are plausible, but that doesn't rule out catastrophe. Technology may be unavailable or late, or someth8ing compeltely unpredicted may occur.

Not saying that it's definate we're doomed (as a species), but it's possible. We are all doomed as individuals, though :)

Of course, taking a long enough view, we're all doomed to heat death or the big crunch in the end, no matter what :)
 
The Don said:
There isn't a schedule, it could happen tomorrow (relatively speaking).

Nanobots do not yet exist. We do not yet have the technology to cancel out the sterility gene

Of course we'll probably find some other way to mess things up for ourselves by then.
Click to expand...

#1: Yes I know that. I'm not stupid. That level of tech might not be around for 30+ years. I thought Huntsman was putting out a hypothetical. There really is a sterility gene? If so how do you think we'd be stupid enough to change one person like that; not to mention 10,000,000,000 people(which is what the Earth's population will be at the time we'd have GE at the level I'm talking about; and not be able to reverse it. You have heard of retrovirus vectors haven't you?
 
Huntsman said:
Not saying that it's definate we're doomed (as a species), but it's possible. We are all doomed as individuals, though :)
Click to expand...



Maybe. Some interesting work is being done with enzymes though. Remember life is an unbroken chain going back very likely 3+ billion(US version) years. If our cells replaced themselves indefinitely we'd live till the end of the universe, barring a fatal accident of course. I guess I'm what you'd call an Skeptical/optimistic/atheistic/artistic/futurist;) :)
 
I'm actually more optomistic than I sound, I just always try to play devil's advocate as a check to my own thinking :)

As to living forever, there isn't just aging, but disease, mutation, accident, murder, and a host of other things to deal with, too.

But, i do think we'll get remarkable gains in lifespan :)
 
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