Pentagon Reports on Abrupt Climate Change

Why is a Pentagon report from Oct 2003 suddenly begining to come out in the news? One would hope that it is because certain people want the Democrats to use the report against Bush in the 2004 election. This would be an excellent tactic since the Bush administration has mostly ignored possible climate change and The Greenhouse Effect, and science in general.

The original article on the leaked report appeared in Fortune on January 26th, the Guardian ran the story with a very dire take on Feb. 22nd. The report itself (PDF) contains many dire scenarios, but overall is a more sober account of things the US govt. might need to consider and plan for in case the world's climate suddenly shifts and causes catastrophic weather changes. It was created for the Pentagon by futurists Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. I read the entire report, and while it is scary, it struck me that somehow in the coming plausible catastrophy, the US would be ok. We would mostly be worrying about people from other countries trying to get in and get our food and water and we along with Australia would probably build some sort of fortress around oursleves. That's a bit far fetched, also, there was much mention of rising waters everywhere else in the world, but little account of it in America, or Canada for that matter. That also strikes me as odd, since if the oceans are rising because of massive ice melts in arctic areas, we'd lose much of our coastline too. Overall I think the report is a little too rosy an outlook for the US in this type of scenario. It also mentions little about unrest in America itself, say the millions of poor busting down the doors of the rich to get to their massive food stores during the famine and droughts to come.

The main point I'd like to make about this report though, is that someone better damn well use it and the Bush administration's seeming ignorance of it against them in the coming election. The fact that they would be ignoring such a threat to our very lives, let alone national security is a grave charge indeed. The fact that they have read this report and remain silent on it infuriates me, but it also makes me suspicious. Now that I know about it, I look at their recent actions with new eyes. For instance, the report mentions oil shortages and energy shortages many times. This makes me look at the recent Iraq war in yet another way. Perhaps they wanted to get their hands on what they saw to be easy oil before they were ousted from the White House, and then use the "victory" to stay in to boot.

Now I see the Bushites are trying to push their atrocious energy bill through as fast as possible. The bill not only cements the oil and coal industry as main energy sources, it lessens restrictions on emissions, and allows for more water and air pollution. They claim they will bring it up for a vote in the Senate as soon as the next 24 hours. What's the rush guys? Is the sky falling?

For another great article on the report and it's implications go tothis Mother Jones article

For the very recent article on the charge by many top scientists that the Bush admin. ignores science in it's decision making go here

For a super scary movie trailer on just this scenario go here