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Pentagon Unveils Plan For Military's Response To Climate Change
An anonymous reader writes Rising sea levels and other effects of climate change will create major problems for America's military, including more and worse natural disasters and food and water shortages that could fuel disputes around the world, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Monday. From the article: "The Pentagon's 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap (PDF) describes how global warming will bring new demands on the military. Among the report's conclusions: Coastal military installations that are vulnerable to flooding will need to be altered; humanitarian assistance missions will be more frequent in the face of more intense natural disasters; weapons and other critical military equipment will need to work under more severe weather conditions. 'This road map shows how we are identifying — with tangible and specific metrics, and using the best available science — the effects of climate change on the department's missions and responsibilities,' Hagel said. 'Drawing on these assessments, we will integrate climate change considerations into our planning, operations, and training.'"
There's still some debate as to *how* screwed we are though. Global climate is changing, but if we stopped emitting CO2 within the next couple decades there's still a chance that the change would be short-lived and once the excess carbon has been absorbed, in a century or so, things will be back to "normal" without any further effort on our part. The problem is that the system is bistable, and once we cross the tipping point the positive feedback loops will dump the massive ecological stores of CO2 into the atmosphere, completely dwarfing our own small contributions. Just as has happened in all the previous major warm spells in the planet's history when unrelated events caused warming beyond the tipping point. Once we cross that tipping point then trying to reduce our own CO2 emissions is pointless - the only options are to simply adapt to a much warmer world, or engage in massive, risky geoengineering projects. Getting off fossil fuels would still be a good idea for reasons of pollution and geopolitics, but wouldn't amount to a fart in a hurricane where global warming is concerned.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
This particular problem has a far simpler solution that actually works: Use soap and hand sanitizer, and don't touch dead people.
Tell that to the nurse in Dallas who used full biohazard protective gear and still got Ebola.
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