Top ex-military leaders call global warming major security risk
First up I must apologise for the lack of posts for a while. I have been holidaying in the USA and attending the wedding of two old friends. While here in the US I’ve seen snow storms, flooding and all manner of weather the locals assure me is entirely atypical. Now, according to 680 News - All News Radio, Top ex-military leaders call global warming major security risk.
Joining calls already made by scientists and environmental activists, the retired U.S. military leaders, including the former Army chief of staff and President Bush’s former chief Middle East peace negotiator, called on the U.S. government to make major cuts in emissions of gases that cause global warming.
The report warned that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. “The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism,” the 35-page report predicted.
“Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations,” former U.S. Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan told Associated Press Radio. “Everybody needs to start paying attention to what’s going on. I don’t think this is a particularly hard sell in the Pentagon. … We’re paying attention to what those security implications are.”
Gen. Anthony “Tony” Zinni, Bush’s former Middle East envoy, said in the report: “It’s not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.”
It’s a no-brainer to me that increased pressure on the poorer parts of the world will only exacerbate current tensions. Just another reason for the USA and Australia to get with the programme and get behind the Kyoto agreement. It’s still not too late to do something about climate chaos. — DS
Technorati Tags: climate change, emissions reduction, global warming, politics, USA
