And Now...A Message From The Pentagon

A few days ago the Post-Gazette editorial board published this:

Conservative members of Congress may not be ready to acknowledge the reality of climate change, but the Pentagon sees it for what it is — a threat to national security.

On Monday, the Pentagon issued a report assessing the immediate dangers of climate change.

And here's the report itself.

And this is from Secretary Hagel's forward:

The responsibility of the Department of Defense is the security of our country. That requires thinking ahead and planning for a wide range of contingencies.

Among the future trends that will impact our national security is climate change. Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.

And so on.

While the other, smaller, and far more ideological (in this case rightwing) paper in town, the Tribune-Review did reprint this AP piece that said:

The report — described as a Pentagon road map — identifies four things that it says will affect the military: rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more extreme weather and rising sea levels. It calls on the department and the military services to identify more specific concerns, including possible effects on the more than 7,000 bases and facilities, and to start putting plans in place to deal with them.

More broadly, the report warns that as temperatures rise and severe weather increases, food, water and electricity shortages could cause instability in many countries, spreading disease, causing mass migration and opening the door for extremists to take advantage of fractures in unstable countries.

However, our friends on the Trib's editorial board are still looking to disprove the science with this:

Wattsupwiththat.com , which bills itself as “the world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change,” says the water temperature of the Great Lakes is more than 6 degrees colder than last year at this time and 3 degrees colder than normal. Experts say should the trend continue, the lakes could freeze over earlier. And that could impair Great Lakes shipping. This global warming stuff is getting ridiculous.

So, I guess, because a rightwing science denying website says the Great Lakes are warmer this year than last year the Pentagon has to be wrong,

Hmm...ponder that for a bit because that's what the braintrust wants you to believe.

Jack Kelly Sunday

I'm cracking my knuckles in anticipation of this week's Jack Kelly. Our friend Jack, a columnist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has written a column titled:

Globull warming

Get it? GloBULL Warming. "Bull" as in "bullshit."

Needless to say, we all know from which direction the BS is oozing.

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

Eve Ensler, writer of the "Vagina Monologues," snickered with Joy Behar on Ms. Behar's talk show Monday about how stupid Sarah Palin is for not regarding earthquakes and tsunamis as proof of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming.

"I just think the idea that she doesn't believe in global warming is bizarre,"said Ms. Ensler, who was on the show to promote her new book.

"Every scientist at every note believes in it but Sarah Palin doesn't believe in it," Ms. Behar said.

"We just have to walk around the world at this point and look at what is happening to nature and earthquakes and tsunamis," Ms. Ensler said.

"Right," agreed Ms. Behar.

Actually, if you watch the clip you'll see that while Ensler does misstep in mentioning earthquakes and tsunamis, she and Behar are not criticizing Palin because she doesn't think global warming causes earthquakes and tsunamis (which they obviously don't), they're criticizing her because she believes in creationism but not global warming. But of course such context is lost on those with different point to make.

Oh, and Jack needs to actually listen to the clip before pasting the transcript from Newsbusters. Behar says "Every scientist of any note..." not "Every scientist at every note..."

Sorry to say this yet again, but this is something his editors at the P-G should have caught. I would think that a newspaper columnist, if he or she is going to quote someone, should probably try to get the words right. Especially if it's on tape.

Take a look and give a listen if you don't trust me.

At this point, I should note that neither Behar or Ensler are climatologists.

Jack then moves onto another climatologist non-climatologist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr:

Recent events have tested the faith of true believers in AGW. In September 2008, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an op-ed lamenting that, thanks to global warming, it would snow no more in Washington, D.C. The blizzard of 2010, which dumped record snow on the nation's capital, must have come as a shock.

It should come as no shock to the readers of this blog that Jack Kelly misquoted Bobby's son.

Take a look at the column. This is all Kennedy said about the weather in DC:

In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today's anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington's C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.

He talks of the current "anemic winters" comparing them to the winters he remembers. No where in the oped does he write anything resembling "no more snow for DC." Something else, I am sorry to say, that his editors should have caught.

Next he does a flim (or is that a flam?):

Europe is experiencing its coldest winter in decades. During its winter (our summer), Australia experienced record cold.

Journalists have hastened to remind us that weather is not climate.

Actually it's scientists who remind us that weather is not climate not journalists. By putting the experts' words into inexpert mouths, Jack is hoping to invalidate the reminder. They're only journalists, you know. If he were to have written that climatologists remind us that weather does not equal climate then his previous paragraph would have been rendered moot.

Which brings me to the biggest problem with Jack's column. He touches on polar bears, malaria and Minnesota's moose population. No where does he actually tackle the science of global warming itself, just its effects.

The science, as I told the lovely and talented Heather Heidelbaugh on OffQ a few weeks ago, is solid. The stolen emails in East Anglia do nothing to undermine the science.

The temps are up, that's a fact.

It'll have an effect on the world for decades to come.

Do I need to point out (yet again) that The Pentagon agrees?

OK, I Got A Question

But I thought that "Climate Change" was a "fraud."

But if that's the case then why would the Pentagon (THE PENTAGON) write in its most recent Quadrennial Defense Review:

Climate change and energy will play significant roles in the future security environment. The Department is developing policies and plans to manage the effects of climate change on its operating environment, missions, and facilities.

Or this:

A series of powerful cross-cutting trends, made more complex by the ongoing economic crisis, threatens to complicate international relations and make the exercise of U.S. statecraft more difficult. The rising demand for resources, rapid urbanization of littoral regions, the effects of climate change, the emergence of new strains of disease, and profound cultural and demographic tensions in several regions are just some of the trends whose complex interplay may spark or exacerbate future conflicts.

Or finally this:

Climate change will affect DoD in two broad ways. First, climate change will shape the operating environment, roles, and missions that we undertake. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, composed of 13 federal agencies, reported in 2009 that climate-related changes are already being observed in every region of the world, including the United States and its coastal waters. Among these physical changes are increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the oceans and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows.

Can someone explain to me WHY The Pentagon thinks Climate Change is real when we all know that it's a fraud?

More On The Surge

Here's a quiz. This hit the blogosphere today. Any guesses as to who said it? It's a statement about the future success of The Surge:

2008 and beyond will be a success, the surge will be a success, if the gains in security can be translated into gains in stability. And stealing Stephen Biddle's comment, if I had to put a number to it, maybe it's three in 10, maybe it's 50-50, if we play our cards right. It is certain that the next year will be far more difficult as it depends far more on the Iraqis themselves to show progress on key legislation, on their economy and on reconciliation. Of note, to recognize that this will be the next phase, that this will be done in 2008 rather than 2007, is a bit of a disappointment as the new way forward envisioned that progress in politics and reconciliation would occur in parallel with progress in security. To see such significant progress in security with only the foundations of progress in reconciliation is a bit disheartening, not to mention sobering.

If you guessed that it's a Pentagon official (and who wouldn't??) you'd be absolutely correct. The video can be seen at thinkprogress.

And according to Kevin Drum, it looks as if this Pentagon official, Mark Kimmet, is reading off a prepared statement. Drum presumes it's a "considered and vetted" position.

But taking a closer look at the wording, it's obvious that there's at most a 50-50 chance for the surge itself to succeed, as success is defined by the Pentagon as political stability in Iraq.

And still American troops die.