The Age Of Consequences

ABC Four Corners - PBS International | Jared P Scott

"We are not your traditional environmentalists." Gen. Gordon Sullivan (Retd), Fmr. Chief of Staff, U.S. Army 

VIDEO ABC Four Corners iview The Age of Consequences PBS International, Jared P Scott Available until 9:18pm 19 Apr 2017

Four Corners brings you the views of distinguished former members of the US military and senior policy makers who warn that climate change is not only real, it's a threat to global security.

"I'm here today not only representing my views on security implications of climate change, but on the collective wisdom of 16 admirals and generals."
Rear Admiral David Titley (Retd), U.S. Navy

They say climate change is impacting on vital resources, migration patterns and conflict zones.

"Climate change is one of the variables that must be considered when thinking about instability in the world."
Gen. Gordon Sullivan (Retd), Fmr. Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Rear Admiral David Titley spent 32 years in the US military. He was the US Navy's chief oceanographer and led the Navy's Task Force on Climate Change. He argues climate change must be acknowledged.

"Our collective bottom line judgement is that climate change is an accelerating risk to our nation's future."
Rear Admiral David Titley (Retd), U.S. Navy

The film analyses the conflict in Syria, the social unrest of the Arab Spring, and the rise of groups like ISIS and how these experts believe climate change is already acting as a catalyst for conflict.

"This is the heart of the problem in many ways. Climate change arrives in a world that has already been destabilised."
Dr Christian Parenti

Director Jared P Scott explores how water and food shortages, drought, extreme weather and rising sea-levels can act as accelerants of instability.

"We realised that climate change would be a threat multiplier for instability as people become desperate, because they have extreme weather and the seas are rising, and there are floods in one area and droughts in another, fragile states become more unpredictable."
Sherri Goodman, Fmr. Dept Undersecretary of Defense

These Pentagon insiders say a failure to tackle climate change, conducting 'business as usual', would lead to profound consequences.

"It's a very dangerous thing to decide that there is one and only one line of events heading into the future and one and only one best response for dealing with that."
Leon Fuerth, Fmr. National Security Adviser, White House '93-'01

Related Reports
CNA Military Advisory Board | National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change | May 2014 - Seven years later, the Military Advisory Board has gathered again to re-examine the nexus of projected climate change and national security. The update serves as a bipartisan call to action. It makes a compelling case that climate change is no longer a future threat - it is taking place now.

CNA Military Advisory Board | National Security and the Threat of Climate Change | April 2007 - Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States. Accordingly, it is appropriate to start now to help mitigate the severity of some of these emergent challenges.

Be Prepared: Climate Change, Security and Australia's Defence Force | The Climate Council | 22 Sep 2015 - The report reveals Australia is lagging behind its UK and US allies in preparing its militaries for climate change, with Australian Defence Force resources already under strain from the increased need for humanitarian assistance in response to climate-induced disasters. By Admiral Chris Barrie (Ret.) and Will Steffen.

Chronology of Climate and Security Risks | The Center for Climate & Security | 2016 - The Climate Security Chronology lists significant policy documents, reports and events by year.

The longest conflict: Australia's climate security challenge | Centre for Policy Development | Jun 2015 - Report launched by Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, former UK Government Climate & Energy Security Envoy, and Admiral Chris Barrie, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force.

News Coverage
Trump's Defense Secretary Cites Climate Change as National Security Challenge | Pro Publica | March 14, 2017 - James Mattis' unpublished testimony before a Senate panel recognizes a threat others in the administration reject or minimize.

House Republicans Buck Trump, Call for Climate Change Solutions | Newsweek | 3 Mar 2017 - Seventeen lawmakers sign on; sponsor says "many, many more" are interested.

Opinion: As global food demand rises, climate change is hitting our staple crops | The Conversation | 1 Mar 2017 - While increases in population and wealth will lift global demand for food by up to 70 per cent by 2050, agriculture is already feeling the effects of climate change. By Dr Andrew Borrell, University of Queensland.

Climate change could threaten entire financial system, APRA warns | ABC News | 17 Feb 2017 - Climate change could threaten the stability of the entire financial system, the prudential regulator has warned, as it prepares to apply climate change "stress tests" to the nation's financial institutions.

Military experts say climate change poses 'significant risk' to security | Guardian | 14 September 2016 - A coalition of 25 prominent members of US national security community warn that higher temperatures and rising seas will inundate bases and fuel conflict.

Meet The Woman Whose Two-Word Catchphrase Made the Military Care About Climate | BuzzFeed News | 30 Nov 2015 - Global warming poses a huge threat to U.S. national security. The military began to care about it a decade ago, largely thanks to Sherri Goodman and her wonky catchphrase.

Climate change is a major security threat but old and bold don't get it | News.com.au | 28 Oct 2015 - Climate change was a 'sleeper issue' for ageing defence brass because potential security impacts were 20 to 30 years away according to former Chief of Defence retired Admiral Chris Barrie.

Links & Social
ABC Environment | @ABCenvironment - A compendium of all the environment news and issues from ABC Australia.

American Security | @amsecproject - ASP is a non-profit, non-partisan research organisation dedicated to fostering honest, public knowledge and understanding of national security issues.

Climate Council | @climatecouncil - Providing Australians with a reliable source of information on climate science, headed by Chief Councillor Tim Flannery.

The Center for Climate and Security (US) | @CntrClimSec - A non-partisan security and foreign policy institute with a distinguished Advisory Board of military, security and foreign policy experts, envisions a climate-resilient international security landscape.

Climate Desk | @ClimateDesk - A journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact-human, environmental, economic, political-of a changing climate.

World Resources | @WorldResources - Global research organisation that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity and human well-being. 

Record-Breaking Climate Change Pushes World Into ‘Uncharted Territory’

The Guardian - Damian Carrington

Earth is a planet in upheaval, say scientists, as the World Meteorological Organisation publishes analysis of recent heat highs and ice lows

A boat lies in the dry Cedro reservoir in Quixadá, Brazil. Climate change increases the risk of extreme weather events like drought. Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images

The record-breaking heat that made 2016 the hottest year ever recorded has continued into 2017, pushing the world into “truly uncharted territory”, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
The WMO’s assessment of the climate in 2016, published on Tuesday, reports unprecedented heat across the globe, exceptionally low ice at both poles and surging sea-level rise.
Global warming is largely being driven by emissions from human activities, but a strong El Niño – a natural climate cycle – added to the heat in 2016. The El Niño is now waning, but the extremes continue to be seen, with temperature records tumbling in the US in February and polar heatwaves pushing ice cover to new lows.
“Even without a strong El Niño in 2017, we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system. We are now in truly uncharted territory,” said David Carlson, director of the WMO’s world climate research programme.
“Earth is a planet in upheaval due to human-caused changes in the atmosphere,” said Jeffrey Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona in the US. “In general, drastically changing conditions do not help civilisation, which thrives on stability.”

The WMO report was “startling”, said Prof David Reay, an emissions expert at the University of Edinburgh: “The need for concerted action on climate change has never been so stark nor the stakes so high.”
The new WMO assessment also prompted some scientists to criticise Donald Trump. “While the data show an ever increasing impact of human activities on the climate system, the Trump administration and senior Republicans in Congress continue to bury their heads in the sand,” said Prof Sir Robert Watson, a distinguished climate scientist at the UK’s University of East Anglia and a former head of the UN’s climate science panel.
“Our children and grandchildren will look back on the climate deniers and ask how they could have sacrificed the planet for the sake of cheap fossil fuel energy, when the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of a transition to a low-carbon economy,” Watson said.
Trump is aiming to cut climate change research. But the WMO’s secretary-general Petteri Taalas said: “Continued investment in climate research and observations is vital if our scientific knowledge is to keep pace with the rapid rate of climate change.”
2016 saw the hottest global average among thermometer measurements stretching back to 1880. But scientific research indicates the world was last this warm about 115,000 years ago and that the planet has not experienced such high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for 4m years.
2017 has seen temperature records continue to tumble, in the US where February was exceptionally warm, and in Australia, where prolonged and extreme heat struck many states. The consequences have been particularly stark at the poles.
“Arctic ice conditions have been tracking at record low conditions since October, persisting for six consecutive months, something not seen before in the [four-decade] satellite data record,” said Prof Julienne Stroeve, at University College London in the UK. “Over in the southern hemisphere, the sea ice also broke new record lows in the seasonal maximum and minimum extents, leading to the least amount of global sea ice ever recorded.”

Eel grass grows in sediment at Lowell’s Cove, Maine, US. Sea-level rise has ruined this once rocky location. Photograph: Robert F Bukaty/AP

Emily Shuckburgh, at the British Antarctic Survey, said: “The Arctic may be remote, but changes that occur there directly affect us. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is already contributing significantly to sea level rise, and new research is highlighting that the melting of Arctic sea ice can alter weather conditions across Europe, Asia and North America.”
Global sea level rise surged between November 2014 and February 2016, with the El Niño event helping the oceans rise by by 15mm. That jump would have take five years under the steady rise seen in recent decades, as ice caps melt and oceans get warmer and expand in volume. Final data for 2016 sea level rise have yet to be published.
Climate change harms people most directly by increasing the risk of extreme weather events and the WMO report states that these raised risks can increasingly be calculated. For example, the Arctic heatwaves are made tens of times more likely and the soaring temperatures seen in Australia in February were made twice as likely.
“With levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently breaking new records, the influence of human activities on the climate system has become more and more evident,” said Taalas.

Links

• 2016 hottest year ever recorded – and scientists say human activity to blame
• Arctic ice melt 'already affecting weather patterns where you live right now'
• Europe faces droughts, floods and storms as climate change accelerat
• Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level
• These are the best arguments from the 3% of climate scientist 'skeptics.' Really.
• Giant icebergs are slowing climate change, research reveals
• Climate change has left US exposed in Arctic, say military experts
• Antarctic ice thicker than previously thought, study finds
• Why climate science denial courtesy of the New York Post measures five miles high
• Research ship trapped in Antarctic ice because of weather, not climate change

Canberra Geologist Helps Advance Global Understanding Of Climate Change

Fairfax - Finbar O'Mallon

To find answers to one of the biggest issues facing the planet, University of Canberra geologist Duanne White travelled to one of its smallest, most inhospitable and isolated corners.
Associate professor White braved freezing temperatures and blizzards on the remote and tiny island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic ocean, collecting data on climate change.
He and his colleagues launched their final report in London on Friday, which showed ice sheets surrounding the island south-east of South America had shrunk faster than previously believed.

University of Canberra associate professor and geologist Duanne White at work on South Georgia in March 2013. Photo: Supplied

Mr White said ice sheets around South Georgia had shrunk to a tenth of its original size since the last ice age, likely as a result of our planet's warming climate.
He said it would help future projections on the change to ice sheets across the planet, helping model sea level rises as a result of climate change.
"It gives us some basic information about how sensitive marine based ice sheets are to ocean warming, and a much better idea for where the thresholds are for other sheets including the Antarctics," Mr White said.
Mr White said his two-week stint on South Georgia was like living in a zoo, with a huge population of fur seals, penguins and other polar and sub-polar animal life.
"I'd often be woken up at four in the morning as a baby seal would come out of the ocean and cry for its mum," Mr White said.
"It's quite the privilege being able to go to some quite remote places and to look at things that are interesting and important to the world and just plain amazing to see."

Icebergs west of South Georgia; Mr White said the report showed South Georgia's ice sheets were a tenth of their original size. Photo: Lidia Slucki

Mr White would take 'cosmogenic exposure dating samples', testing chunks of rock for isotopes created by cosmic radiation.
Seeing the amount of isotopes, like aluminium or beryllium, in the rock showed scientists how long ago the rock was covered by ice.

Mr White would be often woken up in the early hours of the morning by young seals, like this one, on South Georgia Island. 

"Basically as the ice sheet goes past the piece of bedrock it exposes that rock to cosmic rays and starts the clock," Mr White said.
"It really did rewrite our understanding of how the ice sheets on South Georgia have changed."
"The previous theory was they are more or less the same they are today."

Links

• Studying tiny island’s ice age legacy
• Sea ice spread around Antarctica hit a record low
• Extensive ice cap once covered sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia
• An ancient ice sheet pushed life to the brink at South Georgia 20,000 years ago
• Canberra geologist heads to Antarctica for fourth time to help map changes in ice sheet