opinion

Pentagon prepares for the common defense of climate change

Four months ago the Pentagon, not for the first time, raised the alarm that climate change must be confronted. The Department of Defense’s position has been certain for years. As Secretary James Mattis has stated, “Climate change can be a drive of instability and the Department of Defense must pay attention.”

The Military Command has been on watch at the urging of Congress for over a decade. If the Pentagon is alarmed, it is time all of us recognize that while we may differ on causes, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change is real. Forget the divides — conservative, liberal, libertarian or simply contrarian — the common good demands a strong defense. On a tour for journalists in early 2016 at the Norfolk Naval Station, Capt. Dean VanderLey made the DOD position clear: “We talk about sea-level rise. You can measure it.” The Pentagon avoids the politics, the divides; it cites a clear and present danger.

Measure it, it is not difficult. Norfolk Station sits on Chesapeake Bay. In August 2017, Chloe Thompson wrote in USA Today that the headquarters for the Atlantic Fleet, the largest naval base in the world, “already floods 10 times a year.” The base was built at the end of World War I. Sea-level since has risen 14.5 inches. Six months earlier, in National Geographic, Laura Parker expanded: Ten times a year the entry road to the base swamps; roads are impassable; one cannot cross the facility from one end to another. Further, “Dockside, floodwaters overtop the concrete piers, shorting power hookups to the mighty ships.” Quite simply, “All it takes to cause such disarray these days is a full moon, which triggers exceptionally high tides.”

Just a full moon? By 2100, Parker reports, Norfolk “will flood 280 times a year according to one estimate by the Union of Concerned Scientists.” Yes, skeptics can argue that this is just one more cry by a band of chicken littles. On the front-lines, however, the Pentagon is not playing games. Norfolk is not the only base in the Chesapeake Bay region where sea level is rising at twice the global average (and the land itself is sinking). Chloe Thompson concludes, “The condition has spurred the Defense Department to join forces with state and local officials and scientists in the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach in an experimental partnership to find a way to adapt the region — not just the bases — to the watery future they face.” No one up front misses the point.

None should from a distance. The U.S. maintains across the planet over 555,000 facilities covering 28 million acres of land. Thompson warned in USA Today, “From shifting temperatures to desertification, environmental changes have the potential to significantly affect the movement of populations, the availability of resources and the stability of governments. The results can be famine, drought, disease and a rise in global conflict.” Food shortages, depleted water resources, populations on the march, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, Thompson reports, the DOD “already regards environmental factors as a national security threat.”

The DOD has been on guard for the past decade. It needs support. Legislators need to hear from all of us. No one disputes the enormous costs to confront the danger. But higher costs mount: in California’s Mojave Desert, a year’s rainfall fell in just eighty minutes on Fort Irwin, causing $64 million in damage. Waters are rising. The Pentagon regularly issues SOS’s. Congress must respond.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni observed: “It’s not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.” How best to harbor our resources? Retired Rear Adm. Jonathan White, former chair of the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change, makes the brief: “You’ve got to make decisions in advance.” Be prepared.

Edward Agran is a retired history professor and has been a resident of Iowa City for the past two years.