Obama Links Global Warming With National Security
It's looking more and more like Obama will be the first president committed to taking decisive environmental action. Today is the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, and in his speech today on foreign policy, he included global warming as a critical national security issue that will be addressed by his administration. From the full transcript:
Here are just five ways in which a shift in strategy away from Iraq will help us address the critical challenges of the 21st century.
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Fourth, the catastrophic consequences of the global climate crisis are matched by the promise of collective action. Now is the time for America to lead, because if we take action, others will act as well. Through our own cap and trade system and investments in new sources of energy, we can end our dependence on foreign oil and gas, and free ourselves from the tyranny of oil-rich states from Saudi Arabia to Russia to Venezuela. We can create millions of new jobs here in America. And we can secure our planet for our children and grandchildren.
He is, of course, 100% right, and action on climate change as national security isn't an entirely new idea. Thomas Friedman proposed a "geo-green" strategy for using renewable energy to tear down totalitarian regimes in the Middle East, and even those dirty hippies at the Pentagon have been preparing contingencies for a world wracked by boiled earth chaos.
But other than the usual chorus of "we must sign Kyoto so other countries will like us again", this could be the first major opportunity for global warming to break out as a serious foreign policy issue, a new kind of "commander-in-chief threshold". If a presidential candidate is unable to tackle global warming in a substantial way, how can he or she possibly be considered anything other than weak on national security?
