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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.'"
Can we get through Ebola, first, and then worry about...
The government should be able to multi-task more than one problem at a time, yes?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Here in the real world, the Secretary of Defense is proposing budget cuts.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/defense-secretary-chuck-hagel-to-recommend-deep-budget-cuts-targeting-pay-benefits/
Because it's already too late. Even if we stopped CO2 production entirely, today, all of this stuff would still happen. The CO2 we're producing today is just compounding the problem for our grand children. Short of discovering cold fusion tomorrow and mass producing small devices with unlimited power that could change the CO2 back into a solid, we're screwed.
If i recall correctly, similar reasoning was adopted by Mr. Homer J. Simpson while addressing his car's engine issue as he proceeded to string a strip of duct tape over the blinking warning light.
The problem is, the government is not doing what it can do, because it is afraid of offending people in a world where Political Correctness is going to kill millions.
Ebola is easy to stop. We have oceans to protect us. All we need to do is stop allowing the 25,000 VISAS from affected countries from being used to gain entry. But t hat is too politically incorrect, so instead we're going to infect our troops by building hospitals there. Don't tell me that it is "low risk", because that is what they said in Dallas. And one million dollars for the first patent later we having stopped anything.
Here is an idea, lets use Military to kill people and break things, and if we can't stomach that, bring them home. That is what they do.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Ebola is easy to stop. We have oceans to protect us. All we need to do is stop allowing the 25,000 VISAS from affected countries from being used to gain entry.
1. Person from Ebola Land travels to Europe or some other non-US country, and exposes a person who is not from Ebola Land, who then travels home to the US.
2. US citizen travels to and from Ebola Land.
There are many different ways that Ebola can reach out and touch people who are not from Ebola Land, shutting down foreign visas is not the solution.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
US Military could count as it's own country in oil usage. They also do a fair bit with reusable energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
And I know several other projects. But for Military readiness, it would be nice if they put a few billion more into supporting something like algae biodiesel or fusion and a few billion less into one more aircraft carrier (correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the current fleet has around 11, more than the rest of the world combined?)
Off the top of my head, America's strategic reserve can cover fuel use for 60 days. However, since the biggest threat to America isn't any type of invasion force (no viable one exists), it would likely be economic and since the days of Hurricane Katrina, we've been shown to be unable to cope with peoples' extended needs.
So the Leadership's strategy should be to wean the country off of it's most dire dependencies. It should almost be the military's strategy as it would only positively effect them, but that runs counter to global force projection and stamping out the latest fires around the world.
Funny to see a branch of the US government that actually has to deal with reality.
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.
Here in the real world, the Secretary of Defense is proposing budget cuts.
The DoD has two problems:
1. The sequester
2. Wildly over-budget acquisition programs for the F-35, the Littoral Combat Ship, IT efforts, and a bunch of other stuff
There's also the issue of the Navy buying a large number of submarines it doesn't have the money to pay for, despite the submarines coming in under budget.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Ebola is easy to stop. We have oceans to protect us. All we need to do is stop allowing the 25,000 VISAS from affected countries from being used to gain entry.
Every complex problem has a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong. Most epidemiologists consider restrictions like these to be counter productive because they encourage both individuals and governments to be less transparent. The key to fighting outbreaks to catch them early, and to do that we need to convince governments to report them as soon as they are detected. They won't do that if the report is going to lead to economy crushing restrictions on travel and trade.
This particular problem has a far simpler solution that actually works: Use soap and hand sanitizer, and don't touch dead people.
Though folks are trying to quash debate, much like the catholic church did to Galileo.
Yes, a state Attorney-General conducting an inquisition in an attempt to silence a prominent climate scientist is very much like what the Church did to Galileo.
And debate on the causes...
Seriously?! The causes are fairly well understood. If you can cite anything from the last 5 years which debates the causes please do (it goes without saying, I trust, that "cite" means a citation to a paper published in a recognised scholarly journal).
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Of course! Just bomb climate change into submission. Why didn't we think of this sooner?
'Murrica.
2) Mandatory 21 day Quarantine, solves the issue.
The problem with draconian over reactions like this is that they just make the problem worse. A mandatory 21 day quarantine incentivizes people to lie about where they have traveled, and to lie about their health condition. It is a disincentive for a traveler that slips through the net, and then gets sick, to seek medical help.
Lie about it, get caught, and go to prison for 3-5 years.
So if you lie, because you don't think you are infected, and then get sick the next day, you should keep your mouth shut and avoid medical help, so you don't go to jail.
Life if you spread Ebola after lying and somehow survive.
So if you think you have Ebola, and also think you have infected others, then your primary focus should be to avoid any contact with authorities, and discourage your friends and family from seeking help as well.
Why do we have to have finely nuanced approaches that don't work is beyond me.
Because the "nuanced" approaches are working well, while your draconian approach is idiotic and counter-productive.
And debate on the causes...
The only people who still want to debate the causes are those who are motivated to disbelieve in human causes. The scientific community has largely moved beyond that are of argument.
There is no such as 'catastrophic man-made global warming', which is why the LIARS renamed it 'climate change', which means something completely different.
You can always tell someone is a climate science denier when they add the adjective "catastrophic" to the front of anthropogenic global warming. The term "climate change" came before "global warming", not after. Gilbert Plass published the peer reviewed paper "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change." in 1956. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created in 1988.
Correction - stopping all energy-producing sources would be the end of civilization. Sure, if we're talking about doing this tomorrow we've got a problem - but if we got serious we could do it in a decade without trouble for a lot less than we're spending on the military, (and probably with a much better effect on geopolitical stability) - we already have plenty of alternatives. Complementary renewables wherever possible, and nuclear elsewhere. If we'd just return to reprocessing spent fuel like we did before advances in uranium mining made it economically inviable the waste would be anon-issue. Safely storing waste for a century or two is a bit of a challenge, but nothing like trying to store it for tens of millenia as is required with the current lunacy of burying fertile fuel alongside the waste so that fresh waste will continue to be produced almost indefinitely.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Lie about it, get caught, and go to prison for 3-5 years.
That's not the way things work in the real world. Move along and let the adults discuss the issue.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
There are many different ways that Ebola can reach out and touch people who are not from Ebola Land, shutting down foreign visas is not the solution.
Exactly. That's why I don't encrypt passwords on any of my machines. Passwords can be brute forced so they're not a solution.
I also have no locks on my doors. Someone can use C4 to blow them up and render them useless. Locks aren't a solution.
Sometimes, even if you can find some way around the proposed idea it doesn't mean the idea isn't good, just that it isn't complete. Nobody said it was. But shutting down travel directly from ebolaland is an obvious first step.
Do you have ESP?
1. Person from Ebola Land travels to Europe or some other non-US country, and exposes a person who is not from Ebola Land, who then travels home to the US.
2. US citizen travels to and from Ebola Land.
There are many different ways that Ebola can reach out and touch people who are not from Ebola Land, shutting down foreign visas is not the solution.
This!
Not to bring up Fox News, but I'll bring up Fox News. The Day before this Dallas shit hit the fan, they were all agog that Obama failed us in yet another bout of cluelessness, and didn't stop all flights from Africa, like the Europeans smartly and effectively did.
And now, Ebola is in Europe too, despite that.
No, you can't completely stop something like this - humans are too clever at going places, and we can't stop the world.
On the other hand, the response in Dallas was criminal. Doctors are supposed to be intelligent people. African guy shows up with disturbing symptoms. They send him home. What? a few questions might have been nice. Since it's in Texas, the nursing team and Doctors who worked on the guy should be executed in th eGrand Texas tradition.
Either that, or forced to room with the Ebola patients.
But also being Texas, I'll bet he was sent home the moment they found he had no health insurance.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
1) How Dallas Happened.
2) Mandatory 21 day Quarantine, solves the issue. Lie about it, get caught, and go to prison for 3-5 years. Life if you spread Ebola after lying and somehow survive.
Why do we have to have finely nuanced approaches that don't work is beyond me.
Because your weird draconian sledgehammer method won't work either?
If someone thinks they might go to prison they might just stay at home. I'd rather be dead than in prison. If my life was going to be destroyed, I'll just stay home. Also, are you going to make everyone who gets the sniffles take a month off work? Might be ebola, right? Declare martial law in Dallas?
Your half assed ideas are laughed at by the ebola virus. If they worked, we could have stopped the 1918 flue pandemic in a week.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Yep. The term Climate change replaced was "The greenhouse effect" (Which was the term scientists where using when the science community first started sounding the warning about CO2 in the late 1800s). Global warming is the more recent term and was never really popular inside the scientific community.
This meme that this is some sort of new idea is getting a bit stupid.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
What about San Francisco?
Neither?
Then most coastal US military bases are probably fine too. There might be some on a couple pacific islands that are having a hard time... but I believe the last time I checked every single one of them was due to erosion and not the rising of global sea levels.
Furthermore, what are we talking about as of now?... 7 centimeters or something? Any harbor that could be made viable or non-viable by 7 fucking centimeters was an accident waiting to happen in the first place. I'm quite sure that the vast majority of harbors have far more robust tolerances.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
you should be worried.
Not really. Even without any containment measures, an infected person passes the disease to only 1 other person. If there was a disease as deadly as Ebola, where that number was ~20 people (as it is with measles for example), then I would be worried.
The low transmission rate is why the outbreak has fewer than 10,000 people after several months.
.: Semper Absurda
Airline safety. Interstate highway construction. Moon landing. Mars landing. Social Security. Medicare. OSHA and what they do. NIST and what they do. NiH and what they do. NOAA and what they do. The U.S. Coast Guard. The U. S. Army. The U.S. Navy. Yet not the U.S. Air Force who never met an expensive plane they weren't determined to fly and who announced proudly to the world they were standardizing on Microsoft Malware. EPA and what they do. U.S. Forest Service and what they do. NTSB and what they do.
Apparently you didn't get the memo from the U.S. Navy which intends to be free of non-renewable energy sometime in the 2020s (discounting nuclear). So this is some conspiracy you've manufactured.
Whenever you find yourself saying, "Bureaucrats are so stupid. This catastrophe has such an obvious solution, why aren't people doing it the way I tell them to?" you really need to stop and think - "... Maybe there's some angle to this that I'm missing?"
The fact is, we tried your idea with SARS - it didn't help much, and the cost from reduced trade was in the tens of billions of dollars. The present danger just doesn't warrant that kind of drastic action. Moreover, visas don't mean shit - the only people who have taken the disease to other countries are medical personnel from those countries. Citizens who don't need visas.
Also: whenever you find yourself saying, "This catastrophe has an obvious solution, if only political correctness wasn't getting in the way." It's time to stop and reconsider where you're getting your information. This has nothing to do with political correctness. If someone is telling you that it does, what they're trying to do is take advantage of the situation to push their own agenda.
That begs the question, does our failure to evacuate coastal cities prove that our military bases are safe? The answer to that question is no. In fact, the fact that we are not evacuating coastal cities does not prove anything. That's because there's no evidence that we will evacuate cities when we should. In fact, the global pattern is to ignore problems until they become unignorable, with few exceptions.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So your proposal is that anyone who travels out of the country and tries to return is quarantined for 21 days? And anyone from another country who tries to vacation in the US gets quarantined for 21 days?
There were 69.8million international arrivals in the US in 2013. (Source) So far we have a tiny number of Ebola cases from inbound travel. (I wouldn't count the two people specifically flown back to the US for treatment.) Imposing 21 day quarantines on 70 million people is nearly impossible, a gross overreaction to the actual threat, and would shatter the travel industry. Given that 1 in 9 US jobs depend on travel/tourism (same source as above), this could lead to high unemployment. Would you travel to a country on a vacation if it meant being shut in for 3 weeks? Chances are your vacation would be over before you were even allowed out of quarantine.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
no
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
*facepalm* Wow, looks like you succeeded to submit a 31-words post before your brain had the chance to spend a single cycle thinking about what you were writing. You must either be a very fast typer, or a very slow thinker.
Fucking moron, go back to masturbating in your "Apocalypse Shelter" to videos of Rand Paul.
"Go back"? I never stopped. I was typing with my other hand.
Do you have ESP?