[TheClimate.Vote] July 28, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/July 28, 2019/

[DW documentary video 5:30]
*Record temperature heatwave in Europe: The new normal? *
DW News Published on Jul 26, 2019
People in Europe are sweltering under another extreme heatwave. Across 
the continent, records are being toppled one after another. In France, 
Paris has a new record high of 42.6 degrees for the capital. And for the 
second straight day, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have all 
recorded new all-time highs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVR5o7HKjgo


[Sunday -- Sermon for the Extinction Rebellion]
*This is Not a Drill - Missives from XR - Rev Karen G Johnston | 
Extinction Rebellion*
Extinction Rebellion
Published on Jul 25, 2019
Bad news is accelerating on the climate crisis front. Also accelerating 
are new movements in response. The Sunrise Movement here in the U.S. The 
global student strike movement started by Swedish Greta Thunberg. 
Extinction Rebellion, which started in the UK in October, 2018 and is 
already world-wide. Just a month ago, they published a handbook, from 
which this sermon takes its title.

Video rebroadcast courtesy of Unitarian Universalist Congregation of 
Santa Fe https://www.uusantafe.org/

Reverend Karen G. Johnston https://www.uua.org/offices/people/ka... is 
the settled minister at The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick, New 
Jersey. She grew up in Oregon, raised her children in Western 
Massachusetts, and now lives with her partner, dog, and cat in Central 
Jersey.

"This is Not a Drill" 
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314/314671/this-is-not-a-drill/9780141991443.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR7J7kIUqGs



[Wildfire watch]
*Arctic wildfires: What's caused huge swathes of flames to spread?*
Wildfires are ravaging the Arctic, with areas of northern Siberia, 
northern Scandinavia, Alaska and Greenland engulfed in flames.

Lightning frequently triggers fires in the region but this year they 
have been worsened by summer temperatures that are higher than average 
because of climate change.

Plumes of smoke from the fires can be seen from space.

Mark Parrington, a wildfires expert at the Copernicus Atmosphere 
Monitoring Service (Cams), described them as "unprecedented".

How bad is it?
There are hundreds of fires covering mostly uninhabited regions across 
eastern Russia, northern Scandinavia, Greenland and Alaska.
See the map - 
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/B9F8/production/_108080674_arctic_fires_640_v3-nc.png
But smoke is affecting wider surrounding areas, engulfing some places 
completely.

Cities in eastern Russia have noted a significant decrease in air 
quality since the fires started.
The smoke has reportedly reached Russia's Tyumen region in western 
Siberia, six time zones away from the fires on the east coast.
In June, the fires released an estimated 50 megatonnes of carbon dioxide 
- the equivalent of Sweden's annual carbon output, according to Cams...
- - -
"It is unusual to see fires of this scale and duration at such high 
latitudes in June," said Mr Parrington.

"But temperatures in the Arctic have been increasing at a much faster 
rate than the global average, and warmer conditions encourage fires to 
grow and persist once they have been ignited."

Extremely dry ground and hotter than average temperatures, combined with 
heat lightning and strong winds, have caused the fires to spread 
aggressively.

The burning has been sustained by the forest ground, which consists of 
exposed, thawed, dried peat - a substance with high carbon content.
Global satellites are now tracking a swathe of new and ongoing wildfires 
within the Arctic Circle. The conditions were laid in June, the hottest 
June for the planet yet observed in the instrumented era.

The fires are releasing copious volumes of previously stored carbon 
dioxide and methane - carbon stocks that have in some cases been held in 
the ground for thousands of years.

Scientists say what we're seeing is evidence of the kind of feedbacks we 
should expect in a warmer world, where increased concentrations of 
greenhouse gases drive more warming, which then begets the conditions 
that release yet more carbon into the atmosphere.

A lot of the particulate matter from these fires will eventually come to 
settle on ice surfaces further north, darkening them and thus 
accelerating melting.
It's all part of a process of amplification...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49125391
- -
[From WildfireToday]
Milepost 97 Fire spreads south
The fire is 25 miles north of Grants Pass, Oregon
The Milepost 97 Fire in southwest Oregon has spread south 6.5 miles 
since it started just south of Canyonville Wednesday night. A mapping 
flight at 11:30 p.m. PDT Friday found that it had reached to within 2 
miles of Azalea and 7 miles northeast of Glendale. It has burned over 
8,800 acres. (a map is below)

So far the fire has paralleled Interstate 5 on the west side of the 
freeway, which has remained open. However the southbound off-ramp at 
Exit 95 (Canyon Creek) three miles south of Canyonville was closed 
Friday night.
https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/milepost-97-fire/
- -
[free advertisement for "Super fighting tool" - literally a tank - a 
tool of our times]
see the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D50OJlkhkYY
*'Sustained Wildfire Suppression'*
Innovation in Sustained Wildfire Suppression
The Arcus Wildtrack is a fusion of existing COTS technology primarily 
developed from the winter sports/snow industry, the donor chassis is 
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either an EMI Controls turbine or an HKD Blue turbine specifically 
designed for Arcus Fire and our vehicles.

The innovative capability to accept water from helicopter water buckets 
to refill and continue suppressing wildfires over long distances with no 
road access is something that cannot be underestimated. These true 
all-terrain vehicles are happy in just about all topography environments.

Several studies have been conducted on the issue of (AFUE) Aerial 
Firefighting Use and Effectiveness including this study undertaken by 
Airbus Helicopters, as well as the USFS in 2001 here
https://www.arcusfire.com/arcus-wildtrack



[The Great Ocean Divide]
*More than two million square kilometers are being carved up, leaving 
little for the rest of the world*
By Mark Fischetti, Katie Peek | Scientific American August 2019 Issue
The Great Ocean Divide
Credit: Katie Peek
The five countries with coastlines along the Arctic Ocean are making a 
case to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf for 
"extended continental shelf"—seafloor beyond their exclusive economic 
zones—to gain rights to resources on and under the seabed. (The water 
stays open to all people, according to international law.) The countries 
will have to settle large overlaps, notably around the North Pole and 
the Lomonosov Ridge. Only a small parcel or two of seafloor might remain 
open for the rest of the world...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-great-ocean-divide/


[Thanks NPR - message delivered, at least on a weekend show]
*Opinion: Is Anything More Urgent Than The Temperature Of Our Planet?*
JUL 27, 2019 BY Scott Simon
It's hot: historically, treacherously, hot this week, in surprising places.

109 degrees in Paris, the highest temperature ever recorded there. 
People plunged into the Trocadero fountains to cool down, while 
officials worried some of the charred walls of Notre Dame Cathedral that 
didn't fall in last April's fire might now dry out and collapse in the 
furnace of summer heat.

Scorching new records were also set in Belgium, the Netherlands, 
Britain, and Germany, where the Richard Wagner Festival opened in 
Bayreuth in the un-air-conditioned swelter of a 19th-Century opera house.

If there's anything more intimidating than a 3 and a half hour German 
opera, it's sitting through it in one hundred degree heat.

Northern Europe is not Dallas or Miami. The great cities on the 
continent have not been built to function in the kind of heat and 
humidity that has struck there in recent years.

More than 70,000 people died in the 2003 European heat wave. At least 
650 more people died during extreme summer heat in Britain last year. 
The hottest summers in Europe for the past 500 years have all occurred 
in just the past 17 years. What do all those new heat records show if 
not that the climate is changing?

The heat is especially dangerous for young children and older people, 
and onerous for everyone. Bob Ward of Britain's Grantham Research 
Institute on Climate Change and the Environment says scientists should 
name heat waves, as they do hurricanes, because they're public health 
emergencies.

Thousands of miles from Europe's summer heat, the Copernicus Atmosphere 
Monitoring Service has followed more than 100 wildfires that have 
erupted in the Arctic since June. Scientists say the number of wildfires 
in Siberia, Greenland, and Alaska is "unprecedented." And the cinders 
from those fires drift down on ice and snow, which then absorb sunlight, 
causing even more warming in the Arctic.

Our earth is in the middle of what may be the hottest summer on record. 
We've already lived through the hottest June. This may turn out to be 
the hottest July.

A number of years from now, how many other important news stories we 
speak about this week will be as urgent as the temperature of our 
planet? [Copyright 2019 NPR]
https://kuow.org/stories/opinion-is-anything-more-urgent-than-the-temperature-of-our-planet



[boots on the ground]
*U.S. Soldiers Falling Ill, Dying in the Heat as Climate Warms*
At least 17 service members have died from heat illnesses in the past 
decade, and the rise in heat stress injuries suggests the military isn't 
prepared for worse.
By David Hasemyer
JUL 23, 2019...
In 2008, 1,766 cases of heat stroke or heat exhaustion were diagnosed 
among active-duty service members, according to military data. By 2018, 
that figure had climbed to 2,792, an increase of almost 60 percent over 
the decade. All branches of the military saw a rise in heat-related 
illnesses, but the problem was most pronounced in the Marine Corps, 
which saw the rate of heat strokes more than double from 2008 to 2018, 
according to military data.
The troops who died of heat exposure are among the most extreme examples 
of how a warming world poses a threat to military personnel, both at 
home and abroad...
- -
The investigation found that despite acknowledging the risks of climate 
change, the military continues to wrestle with finding a sustainable, 
comprehensive strategy for how to train in sweltering conditions. The 
military's investigative reports, often heavily redacted, show evidence 
of disregard for heat safety rules that led to the deaths of service 
members. The reports document a poor level of awareness of the dangers 
of heat illness and the decisions of commanders who pushed troops beyond 
prudent limits in extremely hot conditions...
- - -
One challenge in getting commanders to treat the heat threat as an 
urgent priority is that global warming is an increasingly taboo topic in 
the military under President Donald Trump, who has called climate change 
a hoax. In testimony before Congress, generals and admirals continue to 
flag climate change broadly as a threat to national security. But 
Trump's stance makes it difficult for leaders at some levels to frame 
the heat problem as an urgent climate change threat, according to 
interviews with retired officers, defense academics and current military 
personnel.

"No one is going to talk about climate change because of the political 
aspect and who is in the White House," a military official, who asked to 
remain anonymous, said. "It's a career killer to talk about something in 
opposition to that of the administration."

There is a ripple effect to this silence, said Alice Hill, a National 
Security Council official under President Barack Obama who focused on 
climate and security...
- - -
"I'm going to choose my words carefully," she said in an interview 
accompanied by a military public affairs officer. "Temperatures are 
increasing; heat waves are more frequent and putting people at increased 
risk. We believe there is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence 
that points to global warming. That is an obvious statement of fact. The 
thing about science and fact is — it doesn't matter if you believe them 
or not, it remains fact."

Galer wrote a 2018 white paper on heat-related illnesses as a blueprint 
for how the military can face this climate threat. She cited a "tragedy 
loop" in which heat awareness is redoubled after a training death but 
then fades with time — until another soldier dies.

"As prudent physicians," Galer said, "we need to prepare for a future 
where temperatures are increasing."..
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23072019/military-heat-death-illness-climate-change-risk-security-global-warming-benning-bragg-chaffee
- - - -
[Clips from a long testimony on policy global warming risk]
*Admiral Phillips and Admiral Titley to House Budget Committee: The 
Security Costs of Climate Change*
https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/07/26/admiral-phillips-and-titley-to-house-budget-committee-the-security-costs-of-climate-change/
- - -
[Headlines clipped from 15 page statement to House Budget Committee]
*The Cost of Climate Change: From Coasts to Heartland, Health to Security*
David W Titley, Rear Admiral USN (Ret.), Ph.D.
Founder, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk
Statement to the United State House of Representatives
Committee on the Budget
24 July 2019
[Clipped from major comments:]
*The extremes of yesterday do not foretell the extremes of tomorrow:...*
...While we plan for climate, we live in weather - its day-to-day 
variations, and more
importantly, its extremes. The challenge for readiness and resilience is 
to ensure our
military bases and infrastructure are designed for and can withstand the 
extremes
tomorrow - which we will not understand by simply looking back over the 
past 50 or 100
years.
*The rapid and continual change in climate will have significant impacts*
***on our national security:.. *
The days of climate stability that we have experienced for most of human 
civilization are over. All aspects of society, including the security 
enterprise, will no longer be able to assume that "the past is prologue" 
when considering the future physical environment. Specifically, the 
changing climate impacts National Security in three major ways:

    *Changing the battlespace, or the physical environment in which our*
    *Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines will operate. *The Arctic is
    a prime
    example of an operational environment that is changing rapidly today...
    *Posing increasing risks to the Department of Defense's bases and
    training*
    *ranges.* Without fully operational bases and training ranges in the
    United States,
    in addition to key overseas bases, U.S. forces cannot maintain the
    levels of
    readiness required...to execute our defense missions. In addition to
    sea level rise
    threatening our coastal installations, other bases and training
    ranges are at risk
    from increased frequency and severity of wildfires, droughts and
    floods not
    previously experienced. In addition, sustained smoke from wildfires
    and an
    increasing number of days with excessive heat and humidity can
    significantly
    degrade the training value of that base or range...
    *...changing climate can make already unstable situations worse,
    sometimes*
    *catastrophically so.* Climate change is rarely the sole
    contribution to a nationstate failing, or conflict breaking out.
    However, it can be a powerful link in a chain of events that, if not
    broken can lead to runaway instability. While large scale human
    suffering often accompanies these situations, U.S. military forces
    are frequently directed to these areas and our troops are placed at
    risk. As we have
    seen with Syria, once the geopolitical situation deteriorates to a
    point where there
    are no good policy options, other opportunistic countries can move
    in and exploit
    the instability to their advantage - to the detriment of U.S. interests.

*We know how to succeed even when the future is not perfectly known:*
Traditional risk planning takes the chance or probability of an event 
and multiplies it by
the impact. But even when it is difficult to assess the likelihood of a 
specific event, there
are still available methods by which risk planning and mitigation can be 
accomplished.
Our national security teams frequently have to account for these "deep 
uncertainties" and
they have a variety of tools to assist them...

*There are actions we can and should take today.
*The Department of Defense should resource and take actions today that 
will buy down some of the nearest-term risk, ensure that 
climate-sensible policies already in place are followed, and lay the 
groundwork for continued adaptation to a changing climate...

*Risks to National Security from Rapid Climate Change*
*The security establishment does not view this issue as partisan.* At 
its most fundamental
level, this is simply about the ensuring current and readiness of our 
Armed Forces and
managing externally imposed risks...I will highlight several of these risks.

*Security Issues in the Arctic*
Over the past few years in the Arctic, we have seen an almost 
exponential rise in the activity in
the Arctic; more shipping, more resource extraction and more posturing 
for control over the
resources...We assess that today we do not have the communications 
equipment, navigation aids,
and sufficient ice hardened ships to respond to natural or manmade 
disasters in that fragile area
or to protect our vital interests. In other words, we are not prepared 
in the short term for the rate
of increase and we must invest today in increasing our capability and 
capacity...

*The Arctic's physical environment is changing faster than any other 
place on****Earth today:*
Today's Arctic climate continues to warm at a rate twice that of the 
rest of the
world. Temperatures at the North Pole the past three years have reached 
the freezing point - in
the middle of winter. Prior to 2016, this was virtually unheard of. 
While these days make
headlines - especially when it's colder in Washington than at the North 
Pole - the real news is
how much less cold there is in the Arctic relative to even 30 years ago. 
Over the past three
winters, most of the central Arctic has been 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit 
warmer than normal. To
put this into comparison: that much warming in Washington DC would make 
the winters here
more like those in North Carolina.
One of the many effects of this tremendous warming has been to thin the 
ice. 30 years ago, there
was nearly as much old hard thick ice (scientists call it 'multiyear 
ice') as there was first year ice.
Now nearly 80% of the ice you see in any picture of the Arctic is 
softer, thinner first year ice,
and only 20% of the ice has lasted for more than one year. So the Arctic 
sea-ice is changing in
two ways: it's not only decreasing in extent, losing over 13% each 
decade each September, but
it is also rapidly thinning. Combined, these changes lead to a much more 
variable, dynamic ice
pack that will make maritime transportation more tempting, more feasible 
- and paradoxically
more hazardous due to rapidly changing and less predictable conditions.

*Our rivals are paying close attention to the changing Arctic, even if 
we were****not:*
While the United States has shown, at best, sporadic and episodic 
interest in the Artic, our
great power rivals, as defined in our National Security Strategy, have 
made deliberate
investments in planning and resources. The Russians are actively 
monetizing their Northern Sea
Route and rebuilding their Arctic military capabilities, albeit from a 
very low post-cold war
level. After western sanctions were imposed following Russian actions in 
Crimea and the
Ukraine, Russia has courted Chinese investment for their fossil fuel 
industry. China meanwhile
released its Arctic Strategy in January of this year. China declares 
itself to be a "near Arctic
State" and hopes to jointly build a "Polar Silk Road" - likely the 
Northern Sea Route -- as the
northern flank in its "Belt and Road" initiative. China continues to 
court the Nordic states and
Greenland, likely looking for a combination of natural resources and an 
Atlantic terminus to any
future trans-polar shipping route.

*There is still time to execute a deliberate strategy that will assert 
our economic**
**and security interests, assure our allies, and ensure we are ready for 
the**
**future that will be very different than the past: *
In May 2009, at the direction of then Chief of Naval Operations Admiral 
Gary Roughead, I initiated and led the U.S. Navy Task Force
on Climate Change. The U.S. Navy started this task force, not in 
response to any perceived
political pressure, but as a reaction to the collapse of sea-ice in the 
Arctic in the summer of 2007.
Admiral Roughead asked me to assess the conditions in the Arctic and 
provide him with
recommendations for the Navy's response. My conclusions were that the 
sea-ice collapse in the
Arctic, which happened well ahead of most of the computer models of the 
time, was the leading
edge of climate changes to come that would change the operating 
environment for the Navy.
The goal of Task Force Climate Change was to prepare, in a deliberate 
manner, the U.S. Navy
for this future environment, with an emphasis on getting ready for the 
Arctic, as it was the
change that would likely impact the Navy first.
In 2009 I characterized the Arctic as "a challenge but not a crisis". 
However, I said if we
ignored changes in the Arctic or were slow to respond, we heighten the 
risk of the region
becoming a crisis. We need to address the Arctic taking a "system of 
systems" approach. We
need to address our security, economic, scientific and certainly social 
issues in the Arctic, while
simultaneously understanding the motives and intentions of Russia and 
China and assuring our
allies and friends.

*Shipping Issues in the Arctic*
"it's complicated".
- It's cold and austere...It's dark for many months in the wintertime. As
the ice thins and breaks up it becomes even more difficult to predict.
- There is much work still to do charting safe passages and routes for 
arctic shipping...However, much
of the Arctic Ocean has yet to be surveyed to modern standards.
- If you get in trouble, you may be on your own. Although the Arctic 
Council has led the
implementation of both a Search & Rescue and a Marine Oil Spill 
Agreements, it's one
thing to have a signed agreement, and another to have the resources and 
training (we
would call this 'readiness' in the military) to be able to respond 
effectively when the call
comes.
-The combined impacts of the above-listed bullet [point]s give shippers, 
and more importantly,
insurers, pause when running shipping through the Arctic.
- The current routes available for navigating across the Arctic, that is 
the Northern Sea
Route across Russia's coast and the Northwest Passage through the Canadian
archipelago, have significant draft limitations for modern commercial 
shipping. The
Northwest Passage is also a technically demanding navigation detail, 
particularly in
waters subjected to high winds, poor visibility, and rapidly varying and 
unpredictable ice
conditions.
- Both Canada and Russia claim parts of their respective sea routes 
through the Arctic as
'internal waters'. While the U.S. does not recognize these claims, the 
lack of agreement
in governance of specific waters adds uncertainty to any risk equation.
- The current business model of the container fleets stresses both 
reliability of delivery date
and shipping very large numbers of containers to reduce fixed costs. As 
of today, and
likely for the next 10-20 years, those constraints will continue.
Once a seasonally icefree trans-arctic route opens up, most probably 
sometime in the 2030's,
these conditions might change.
- We should always be aware of the potential for disruptive change. The 
liquefied natural
gas (LNG) carrier Christophe de Margerie class of ships set a transit 
speed record for a
commercial ship across the Northern Sea Route in August 2017. Another 
ship in the
class transited the Northern Sea Route in February 2018 with no 
icebreaker assistance.
While it's possible these are 'one off' events - many revolutions are 
not recognized until
they are well underway

*Risks to our Military Installations*
While the direct risks to our military installations from rising sea 
levels and associated storm
surges receive most of the public attention, it's important to examine 
each installation in a
systematic manner in a broader geographic, physical, and hydrological 
context and understand
the range of potential climate and weather-related impacts that should 
prudently be planned for
within a given range of years or decades. In addition to understanding 
the type, frequency,
severity and likelihood of climate-related impacts, a complete analysis 
needs to account for how
well an installation deals with such impacts today; stated another way, 
what is the threshold,
when the impact transitions from manageable, to critically impacting 
life or mission
accomplishment. An example would be what magnitude of storm surge 
breeches a levy, or how
many black flag days delay training to the point where a unit would be 
delayed in achieving its
certification to deploy.
Second-order impacts from the direct climate or weather event need to be 
considered. Examples
would be for the potential of sea level rise to contaminate fresh-water 
drinking aquifers before
the water physically floods an installation, or the smoke from 
significant wildfires disrupting
training even if the flames are not physically on the installation and 
the troops are not re-directed
to firefighting efforts.
We must remember that virtually all of our installations are imbedded 
in, and are part of, larger
communities and of resilience-relevant systems and actions well beyond 
those installations and
communities. Simply 'walling off' or protecting only the physical base 
will not be effective.
Many of our military and civilians who are stationed on, and work at the 
installation, live offbase.
Many of the essential services, such as power, water, fuel, sewer and 
communications
come from beyond the fence line. So even if the base itself is OK, if 
key access roads start to
flood routinely with high tides, such as is becoming the case in Norfolk 
Virginia, there can be an
impact to mission effectiveness. Likewise, if the property values become 
impacted in
neighborhoods where our troops or civilians are living, that can be a 
large distraction and
negatively impact the Department's competition for top talent.
Extreme weather events affecting an installation can have impacts even 
for our forces deployed
downrange. If that home-base is providing critical reach-back support to 
the forward deployed
forces, that support may need to shift to another concept of operations. 
More substantively, it is
a huge distractions and impact on morale if you are forward-deployed and 
see your family
dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster without your presence. 
Senior leaders have
known for decades that military personnel have the highest readiness 
when they understand their
families' basic needs and safety have been met. A weather event such as 
Hurricane Florence
impacting Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune or Hurricane Michael's destruction 
of the Florida
panhandle, particularly Tyndall Air Force Base, can significantly impact 
the mission
effectiveness of our troops already deployed in harm's way.
Additionally, we need to address climate-related risks to not only to 
our installations as such, but
also to the key military and civilian air and seaports critical to the 
deployment and sustainment of
our forces, equipment, and supplies.
Finally, we need to account for climate-related risks when assessing our 
critical installations
beyond the Continental U.S. Bases in regions such as Japan, Singapore 
and Diego Garcia should
all be examined in the same way we consider our installations in Texas, 
California, Florida or
Virginia.

*Climate Risk Interacts with other large 21st Century Trends*
We should remember that the risks posed by rapid climate change do not 
exist in a vacuum.
They affect, and are affected by, other large-scale 21st century trends: 
population growth,
urbanization, expanding demand for food, energy and water resources, and 
globalization. The
2014 CNA Military Advisory Board (MAB) report on the "Accelerating Risks 
of Climate
Change2 expands on this theme. Half a billion people have been added 
since 2007 and another half billion will be added by 2025.
Most of this growth is in Africa and Asia, two of the areas likely to be 
most impacted by climate change.
Nearly half of the world now lives in urban areas with 16 out of 20 of 
the largest urban areas being near coastlines.
- -
The result is more of the world's population is at risk from extreme 
weather events and sea level rise.
There is a global increase in the middle class with an accompanying 
growth in demand for food, water, and
energy. The National Intelligence Community predicts that by 2030 demand 
for food would
increase by 35 percent, fresh water by 40 percent, and energy 50 
percent. Even without the
climate changing, it will be a challenge to meet these growth targets. 
Climate change will further
stress the world's ability to produce food and drinkable water at levels 
necessary to meet
demand. A 2012 National Intelligence Council assessment found that water 
challenges will
likely increase the risk of instability and state failure, exacerbate 
regional tensions, and divert
attention from working with the United States and other key allies on 
important policy
objectives. Finally, the world is becoming more politically complex and 
economically and
financially interdependent. As such, it is no longer adequate to think 
of the projected climate
impacts to any one region of the world in isolation. Climate change 
impacts, combined with
globalization, transcend international borders and geographic areas of 
responsibility.
These are the 'big picture' statistics - but we also know that not every 
extreme weather event
leads to a security crisis. Much work has been accomplished and 
continues to be done in this
area. The graphic (below) of my conceptual model accounts for extreme 
weather, a threshold for
a specific type of weather disaster (e.g., level of storm surge or fresh 
water flooding, sufficient
drought and heat to cause near total crop failure, etc.), and finally 
the national and international
response to the crisis. These factors interact with each other and can 
explain some of the very
different results we see around the world for a given extreme weather or 
climate situation.

*Risks to our Taxpayers**
*In addition to the mission and readiness issues raised above, the 
cumulative impact of the ever increasing frequency and severity of 
extreme weather raises serious financial questions...both the absolute 
number of billion-dollar disasters and their annual cost (CPI-adjusted) 
are increasing...A financial risk that has not been widely discussed 
with respect to climate change, and especially the risk from sea-level 
rise, is that for all practical purposes, the need for dozens and even 
hundreds of coastal communities to adapt to rising seas will occur 
simultaneously. It will be very difficult to space out the expenditures 
over multiple decades, or said another way, to tell one portion of the 
country to wait while we attempt to fix a different section of coastline...

*Recommendations*
So, what should we do?*Overall, I recommend a risk management approach.* 
The Defense
Department will be managing (as opposed to solving) these 
climate-related risks for the
foreseeable future. A risk management approach requires knowledge of the 
number, type, and
severity of impacts, where and how widespread they are expected to be, 
what are the effects on
mission readiness if unabated, and the cost to 'buy down' these risks, 
compared to the value of
maintaining mission readiness. There is of course some degree of 
inherent uncertainty in all
these values - and that uncertainty needs to be accounted for as well.

One action that could be taken today is to ensure no future installation 
or infrastructure
appropriation is obligated before some common-sense review of climate 
impacts for the
projected lifespan of that infrastructure. The degree of hardening for 
climate and extreme
weather impacts should be commensurate with the criticality of that 
specific infrastructure.

*five specific recommendations for  managing climate risks on military 
installations... *
...recommend the Department of Defense,
specifically Naval Oceanography and the U.S. Air Force Weather Service, 
in collaboration
with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. 
Global Climate
Research Program administered by the Office of Science and Technology 
Policy, produce
climate information, recognized as authoritative by the Department of 
Defense, that can
inform risk management decisions on time and space scales and parameters 
that matter.
--...I recommend the Department of Defense...produce climate information,
recognized as authoritative by the Department of Defense, that can 
inform risk management
decisions on time and space scales and parameters that matter.

-- Using a deliberate process, develop over the next 5 to 10 years, a 
'climate impacts' handbook
for each installation and critical node in the deployment system. While 
each installation is
different, standardize the handbook to the degree practical.

-- Build on and expand existing authorities, programs, and resources to 
ensure the Department
of Defense, working in collaboration with other federal agencies, and 
State, local and tribal
authorities, ... should include developing and sustaining a
comprehensive system to provide the Department of Defense with current 
and detailed
information about the relevant resilience and risk mitigation projects 
and plans of non-DoD
entities throughout the broader geographic area within which 
installations are located

*-- The Congress should obtain periodic external or internal*
assessments of how the Department is adhering to its own directive with 
respect to managing
climate risk.

*-- Over the past several years, we have witnessed billions of dollars 
of damage sustained on**
**Defense installations as a result of extreme weather, much of which 
has arguably been**
**intensified by our changing climate.* No one wished for these damages 
to happen, but the
fact that they occurred now provides the opportunity to collect and 
share lessons learned and
best practices across the services and department. Especially for bases 
that had already
undertaken some resilience preparations, what worked and what did not. 
What additional
tools, capacities, authorities or resources would have been most useful 
to maximize
resilience? How did natural and built protective infrastructure perform? 
Are there lessons
learned that would help the department make better decisions with 
respect to installation
energy resilience?

In closing, our country is dealing with a significant change in the 
world's climate; it is a very
serious challenge and if we do not manage this risk climate change, 
unchecked, will make many
of our existing threats worse. But our country has met challenges of 
this magnitude before and
succeeded - and we will do so again. While we don't know everything - 
and we never will - we
do know more than enough to act now. By focusing our efforts in a 
risk-based framework on
meeting the climate challenge, we can prepare for the short-term while 
shaping our longer-term
future. We can provide the policies, stability and guidance our country 
needs to unleash our
country's energy, creativity and initiative...
more - 
https://budget.house.gov/sites/democrats.budget.house.gov/files/documents/Titley_Testimony.pdf


*This Day in Climate History - July 28, 2014- from D.R. Tucker*
July 28, 2014:  MSNBC's Ed Schultz condemns Washington's refusal to take 
the climate crisis seriously.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/climate-change-impact-on-congressional-races-313099843876#
http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/dangerous-oceanic-exploration-off-the-east-coast-313100867952#
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