Tag Archives: military

Virginian Pilot logo

Op-ed: Did we learn from Hurricane Sandy?

One year ago, Hurricane Sandy slammed into the New York and New Jersey coasts. As a result, 43 people died, lower Manhattan was dark for days, and seven hospitals had to be evacuated. In New York and New Jersey, 650,000 houses were damaged, 8.5 million people lost power and reconstruction is expected to cost more than $60 billion.

This destruction reawakened our leaders to the vulnerability of our coastal communities and brought home the dangers of climate change. But have we learned the right lessons?

Read the full op-ed here: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/marqusee-and-titley-did-we-learn-hurricane-sandy

Does Our Military Know Something We Don’t About Global Warming?

Every branch of the United States Military is worried about climate change. They have been since well before it became controversial. In the wake of an historic climate change agreement between President Obama and President Xi Jinping in China this week (Brookings), the military’s perspective is significant in how it views climate effects on emerging military conflicts.

China will be our biggest military and political problem by the middle of this century. It would be nice to understand what issues will exacerbate our struggles.

…

General Gordon Sullivan put the issue of uncertainty where it should be:“People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections…But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”

And as Rear Admiral David Titley, former Oceanographer of the Navy, stated in a 2013 testimony to Congress, “I tell people, this is cutting-edge 19th-Century science that we’re now refining.”

Read the full article on Forbes.com: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2014/11/14/does-our-military-know-something-we-dont-about-global-warming/