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May 21, 2014

Climate change report hurts national security


A group of retired generals have released a climate change report that claims that weather is a threat to national security. What climate change is that exactly?

General Donald J Hoffman I Photo Credit Wiki media Commons
General Donald J Hoffman | Photo Credit Wiki media Commons
Perhaps you may recall  when former Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen testified before congress and claimed that America’s greatest national security threat was our national debt.  Such sentiments, however true, are no longer in line with a liberal administration whose answer to every problem begins and ends with government spending.
A new threat is needed so a group of ex-military officers have stepped forward if to not exactly to serve their nation then at least to serve the current Commander and Chief’s political talking points. Forget the debt, forget the Iranian mullahs, the former KGB colonel with a Napoleon complex, or even suicidal maniacs that consider the United states “The Great Satan,” the growing threat to American national security is climate change.
One irony in the report put out by a group calling itself the Center for Naval Analysis’ Military Advisory Board is that while the left for years has vociferously objected to using our military for “nation building” they have absolutely no problem in utilizing that same military for, well, nation building.
The U.S. military should plan to help manage catastrophes and conflicts both domestically and internationally….
That US military managing catastrophes and conflict “domestically” is a bit disconcerting as well.
One of these retired military officers who is out campaigning for the Obama agenda is retired Air Force General Don Hoffman who is currently on a speaking tour warning of the threat posed by climate change to our national security. In a recent interview he made an observation which caught my attention.
“We find ourselves increasingly responding to natural disasters,” said Hoffman, who retired in 2012 as commander of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. “The military is there and was in the past. The intensity and frequency has gone up. What used to be a 100-year event is now a decade event. It’s going to take more and more time and consumption and ability for the military to respond to that. I think we will but that’s less training for our day job, which is national defense.”
The first point that must be noted is that the use of our military in dealing with “natural disasters” is purely a policy and priority choice. The general makes this point himself when he points out that in dealing with these disasters the military is short changing their actual purpose, national defense. If an administration chooses to use our military to help with “natural disasters” rather than train for their “day job” that choice itself is the threat to national security not the disaster. There are plenty of  federal and state agencies that are and can be tasked with dealing with natural disasters without using the military. In fact it is the traditional role of a state’s National Guard to deal with natural disasters without the need to call in the 101st Airborne.
But the more important question that needs to be answered is what exactly are the increased “natural disasters” that the military is being called upon to deal with?  Which disaster’s “intensity and frequency has gone up?” Let’s  look at some actual facts.
When discussing the alleged increase in natural disasters, it is very important to remember that even if you” believe” in the climate change meme, many natural disasters can not be attributed to climate change. Only the unhinged fringe of the climate cult would blame tsunamis, earthquakes or volcanoes on climate change and these three disasters are among the largest challenges faced by humans when dealing with natural disasters.
One natural disaster that requires a great deal of manpower and logistical expertise to deal with and where the military might be a benefit, though state National Guards have done a wonderful job over the years, is hurricanes. Are hurricanes increasing in “intensity and frequency”?Despite the cover of Al Gore’s book and the posters for his docudrama, hurricanes in the last decade are actually less frequent and particularly where the United States is concerned, less intense.
Not only is the  Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) a metric that measures both the intensity and duration of cyclone activity at historic lows
In the pentad since 2006, Northern Hemisphere and global tropical cyclone ACE has decreased dramatically to the lowest levels since the late 1970s. Additionally, the frequency of tropical cyclones has reached a historical low.
But as regards to the United States, the last major hurricane (category 3,4,5) to strike the United States was Wilma in 2005. This drought of major hurricane strikes on the United States is the longest period since the Civil War. So much for the military having to deal with increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes.
What about tornadoes? When discussing weather events and the “records”  surrounding them it is important to realize that the historical record is often quite short and where they may be longer they are obviously less accurate the further back in time you go. The official record on tornadoes as an example only goes back to 1950, not exactly enough time to determine whether or not a season is “historic.” So we will just let a real climate scientist who is an expert on tornadoes answer the frequency intensity question. What say you Harold Brooks, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory?
No one knows whether tornadoes have increased in number or intensity, since the aforementioned changes in reporting practices “make the intensity question harder to answer,” Brooks said, adding, “If you take the dataset of reports at face value, it appears intensity has decreased over the years, but there are a number of things that have led to lower ratings for the strongest tornadoes.”
So our military has not been needed for more frequent or intense tornadoes, at least as far as the scientists can determine. So that leaves what? Floods and droughts? I really don’t know what the military could do about droughts, haul water? But let’s get it out of the way. Here is the official drought record for the United States from NOAA. Please note that the “dry” condition is below the dotted line.
Read entire article at Brenner Brief

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