Can the US military play a role in climate change?

Why the US Military Is the Best Hope for Climate Change Action

The Trump administration might not be treating the climate change threat with the seriousness it deserves. But its decision to drop the issue from the latest National Security Strategy’s list of chief threats to the United States is far from the end of the argument, suggests Anatol Lieven in Foreign Policy. It’s time for the US military to make its voice heard.

“[T]he sheer scale of the threat to the security of the country means that the US military has an institutional and patriotic duty to instruct Americans concerning this threat, just as it has influenced them in the past on other threats falling within the military’s sphere of competence,” Lieven writes.

“Two wider issues are involved here. The first is that as an institution that depends on science for its weapons and intelligence systems, the US defense establishment not only has a keen understanding of its importance, but can remind the American public of the vital urgency of reckoning with scientific fact.

“The second relates to the role of patriotism and nationalism in America. At present, climate change has been turned — quite unnecessarily — into an issue that divides Americans rather than unites them. Nationalism is the only force in the United States and elsewhere that can motivate the masses to make sacrifices in the struggle against climate change not on behalf of abstract ideas of planetary responsibility but on behalf of a commitment to the future of their countries.”

There’s more to understanding climate change than stepping outside. Fareed explained on Sunday’s “What in the World?” segment why Americans shouldn’t be fooled by those pointing to a frigid spell across much of the country as evidence that the world isn’t getting warmer.

“Global Warming is real. NASA shows us that 16 of the 17 warmest years in the 136-year old record have all occurred since 2001 with one exception, 1998. And even as we are freezing here, a lot of other places in the world are recording warmer-than-normal temperatures.” Watch the full segment here.

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