Now
The Pentagon Tells Bush:
Climate Change Will Destroy Us
By Mark Townsend
and Paul Harris in New York
The
Observer
22 February , 2004
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.
Last week the Bush
administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected
scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy
agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a
former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said
that suppression of the report for four months was a further example
of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Senior climatologists,
however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing
Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They
also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties
to reduce the rate of climatic change.
A group of eminent
UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears
over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to
treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American
officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with
complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of
touch.
One even alleged
that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments
attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific
adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.
Among those scientists
present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former
chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the
UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate
Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove
the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.
Sir John Houghton,
former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first
senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism
- said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this
is an important document indeed.'
Bob Watson, chief
scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could
no longer be ignored.
'Can Bush ignore
the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document.
Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is
national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally
speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national
security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the
Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,'
added Watson.
'You've got a President
who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've
got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush
starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock
of Greenpeace.
Already, according
to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population
than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy
supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet
into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought
widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations
that could soon be repeated.
Randall told The
Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would
create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national
security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your
guns at and we have no control over the threat.'
Randall added that
it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We
don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow
and we would not know for another five years,' he said.
'The consequences
for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious
that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'
So dramatic are
the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the
US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate
change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance
are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.
The fact that Marshall
is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82,
is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing
risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed
'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited
with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile
defence.
Symons, who left
the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression
of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury
evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government
should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'
Symons said the
Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies
was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically
in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in
order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.
© Guardian Newspapers
Limited 2004