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Hey, George! The Pentagon’s scared, too;
the brass sees global warming as a huge threat
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The thing about global warming is that all you have to do is say
those two words and most people’s eyelids – like our polar
icecaps – start sliding down, down, down.
Mine too. But in a minute, your eyes are going to boiling open so
wide, you may not be able to sleep tonight. That’s because
global warming is suddenly Topic A at two places not normally
associated with hugging trees: the Pentagon and the insurance
industry.
They have just realized: Hey, if the climate really is going to
hell – thanks to willy-nilly burning of fossil fuels – this could
mean tidal waves, droughts, searing heat and freezing cold. Not to
mention nuclear war. That means global warming is: (1) At least as
big a threat to the world as terrorism, and (2) probably going to
cost a whole lot in insurance payouts!
Yes, yes, I find realization No. 1 more troubling than No. 2, too.
But the good thing about the hawks and corporations starting to
voice the same concerns is that these are two groups the Bush
administration may actually pay attention to.
The Pentagon report was commissioned to assess the threat to
national security if there is an “abrupt climate change
event.” (They always say “event” when they mean
catastrophe.) And the report’s conclusion?
There’s a huge threat! If global warming brings on famine and
drought, these could trigger wars for water, food and oil. If the
average rainfall in Europe plummets – a distinct possibility – we
could see massive boatlifts of people attempting to enter America.
If India and Pakistan are desperate for the same shrinking source
of drinking water, they could go nuclear. If America and China both
enter an ice age, they might go to war for Saudi Arabia’s
oil. Etc., etc., etc.
The Pentagon bigwig who commissioned this report is Andrew
Marshall, an 82-year-old legend so wise and experienced that his
colleagues call him “Yoda.” Marshall released the
report’s findings to Fortune magazine, and his motive seems
clear: to goad the business community into taking action, because
goading President Bush has gotten nowhere.
To date, Bush has not only pooh-poohed warnings on global warming,
he has gone so far as to distort his own EPA’s findings. He
also refused to sign the Kyoto Accord on greenhouse emissions,
claiming America needed more time to research whether this was a
manmade problem.
The Pentagon report says that wasting more time is irresponsible,
and manmade global warming is real. And that’s what the
insurance companies are starting to realize, too.
Swiss Re, a giant company that insures other insurers, has just
issued a call to action. Its climate expert, Pamela Heck, says that
last summer’s European heat wave that killed 19,000 may have
been a “glimpse at climate change to come.”
In its blockbuster report, Swiss Re estimates that in 10 years, the
economic cost of disasters like floods, frosts and famines caused
by global warming could reach $150 billion annually. That’s
the cost to the insurance industry of a World Trade Center disaster
every year.
The way to avoid this horrible scenario is clear, says Jon Coifman,
a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council: We must cut
way back on our country’s carbon dioxide emissions.
“We are about 4 percent of the population and produce about
25 percent of the world’s emissions,” he says. To
pollute less, we need to switch to cleaner, renewable energy
sources. We need to build more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. And
we need new laws limiting industrial emissions.
Fortunately, there is a global warming bill coming to Congress this
spring sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman,
D-Conn., that addresses these issues. It came within just seven
votes of passing last year. This year, it must pass.
Or else.
Lenore Skenazy is a columnist for the New York Daily News, 450
West 33rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10001; e-mail:
“mailto:lskenazy@edit.nydailynews.com”>lskenazy@edit.nydailynews.com.
Lenore Skenazy
New York Daily News