And just how many times will that sentence be used now as the impetus to start another war ourselves? Why do these Generals think Bush is not listening to anything regarding this climate crisis and the effect it is having on our world? The opportunists are licking their chops waiting as the glaciers melt so they can get to the oil reserves in the Arctic, and working to have their corporate benefactors buy up and priviatize the water resources and to already control the ethanol market.
I have no doubt they will also try to take over any other type of renewable energies brought forth to keep the poor paying for it and to make sure it is not as accessible as the options that make them money. They will do anything to keep the free market from actually bringing about solutions that will slow down the process of climate change because it will put a crimp in their plans and their wallets. They love to see this happening because it is the rich who will buy up the resources left to use for themselves and to use to exploit the weak and poor... and that is exactly what makes them terrorists as well, and why we have to work to keep that from happening.
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http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/15/warming.military.ap/index.htmlGenerals: Global warming threatens U.S. security
April 15, 2007
Story Highlights
• Report predicts wars over water, hunger, displacement in the next 30-40 years
• "Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations," one author says
• Gen. Zinni: We can pay with money now or with lives later to address problems
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the U.S. likely will be dragged into fights over water and other shortages, top retired military leaders warn in a new report.
The report says 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 predicts.
"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, President Bush's former Middle East envoy, says in the report: "It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism."
The report was issued by the Alexandria, Virginia-based, national security think-tank The CNA Corporation and was written by six retired admirals and five retired generals. They warn of a future of rampant disease, water shortages and flooding that will make already dicey areas -- such as the Middle East, Asia and Africa -- even worse. "Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies," the report says. "The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations."
Joining calls already made by scientists and environmental activists, the retired U.S. military leaders call on the U.S. government to make major cuts in emissions of gases that cause global warming. The Bush administration has declined mandatory emission cuts in favor of voluntary methods. Other nations have committed to required reductions that kick in within a few years. "We will pay for this one way or another," writes Zinni, former commander of U.S. Central Command. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."
Top climate scientists said the report makes sense and increased national security risk is a legitimate global warming side-effect. The report is "pretty impressive," but may be too alarmist because it may take longer than 30 years for some of these things to happen, said Stanford scientist Terry Root, a co-author of this month's international scientific report on the effects of global warming on life on Earth. But the instability will happen sometime, Root agreed.
"We're going to have a war over water," Root said. "There's just not going to be enough water around for us to have for us to need to live with and to provide for the natural environment." University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said the military officers were smart to highlight the issue of refugees who flee unstable areas because of global warming. "There will be tens of millions of people migrating, where are we going to put them?" Weaver said. Weaver said that over the past years, scientists, who by nature are cautious, have been attacked by conservative activists when warning about climate change. This shows that it's not a liberal-conservative issue, Weaver said.
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