Ian Tuttle of National Review Online examines the federal government’s efforts to wage war on climate change. And by “war,” we refer to actions from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Climate change has always been the president’s hobbyhorse — his nomination was, after all, supposed to be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” — so it is little surprise that, hamstrung at home and flailing abroad, he is flogging this issue, hoping it will distract from his otherwise crumbling agenda and give him the opportunity, before he leaves office, to restore to himself at least a touch of his 2008 grandeur.
The problem, of course, is that his vision of saving the planet from climate change distracts from more pressing tasks, such as saving it from the terrorists and tyrants who are spending their capital on weapons, not wind farms. The effects of decreased Arctic sea ice are difficult to predict. The plans of the Islamic State are not. But because it does not know how to deal with the latter, the White House has Chuck Hagel focusing the nation’s military on the former.
That said, no department of government should embrace the Boy Scout motto more vigorously than the Department of Defense. The security of the American people depends on the Pentagon’s preparations, and if the simulators want to throw bigger hurricanes and fiercer famines into their war games, that’s just fine. The problem is when extreme scenarios based on speculative science become the foundation of policy. There are many better things the Pentagon can be doing with its reduced budget than lifting coastline installations onto stilts on the off chance that the ice caps will melt.
