Jason Silverstein

Statesman Journal

Before beginning a climate change talk to a sold-out Salem City Club crowd on Friday, Dr. David Titley gave the audience a warning about his speech: "There's not going to be a whole lot of polar bears."

Not that Titley has a problem with polar bears. But, as he told about 120 people in the Willamette Heritage Center, he thinks too much talk about climate change prioritizes pretty polar bears over another pained populace: people.

The conversation about climate change consequences, he said, should be "about you and your family and your children."

Through talks like this, Titley has established himself as a voice in the environmental movement who goes against the tide. He's a retired Navy rear admiral who now teaches at Penn State's Department of Meteorology. Drawing on his military career, he has argued for years that climate change is not just a risk to animals and ecosystems, but to international security.

Speaking with the Statesman Journal before his talk, Titley said one of the most dangerous impacts of climate change is how it reveals "institutional resentments and slights" in a nation's fabric.

For example, he said, the Arab Spring was, in part, triggered by droughts spiking the price of wheat in North Africa, sparking an economic outrage that fueled a political outrage elsewhere.

He made the same argument for the conflict in Syria, saying that droughts there highlighted how horrible President Bashar al-Assad treats his own citizens, helping to turn that issue into an international conflict.

Climate change doesn't cause these conflicts, Titley said, but it can be "like throwing a match into gasoline vapors."

Titley said he appreciates the efforts of environmental groups in keeping climate change conversations going, but also criticized them for what he sees as short-sightedness.

Paraphrasing a line from the late French prime minister Georges Clemenceau — "War is too important to be left to the generals" — Titley quipped, "Climate change is too important to be left to the environmentalists."

At his Salem City Club talk, Titley said that a brief and unexpected period of relative climate stability — about 8,000 years or so — allowed us to develop the civilization we have now. But it also tricked us into thinking that we can expect our climate to stay stable — a mentality, Titley said, that we can't keep today.

Invoking war once again, he likened the policy discussions about climate change today the political climate of Europe when World War I started: A "climate of denial," he said, that ultimately led to chaos.

At the end of his talk, Titley didn't offer any easy answers. In response to an audience question, he acknowledged that a personal commitment to sustainability — like cutting down carbon emissions and waste — could be a start. Beyond that, he said he hoped that a number of groups — businesses, the military, activist organizations — would work together for a long-term solution.

"I do believe that America will figure this out," he said.

He paraphrased another line, this one from Winston Churchill: "Americans will always do the right thing, after exhausting all the alternatives."

Titley added, "We're getting pretty close to exhaustion."

After visiting the Salem City Club, Titley spoke at Willamette University's Eaton Hall Friday afternoon.

Email jsilverste@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-399-6745 or follow @jaysunsilver