Commentary: Climate Change Threatens National Security
David Titley, retired rear admiral and now Director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State, writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette : “Climate change is an accelerating threat to national security. That’s the finding of a recent report by the CNA Corporation’s Military Advisory Board, a panel I serve on along with some of our country’s most senior retired military leaders.”
“Each of us is a hard-nosed leader with decades of experience evaluating national security risks. We have been keeping an eye on climate change for years, first reporting on it as a potential national security threat in 2007.”
He concludes: “…we need to get moving. Last year was the fourth warmest on record. It was the 37th year in a row that global average temperatures were above the long-term average. All of the top 10 warmest years on record have been logged since 1998.”
“The climate is changing. We can do something about it. For the sake of our nation and the world, we must act.”