Not content to keep to the terrorism prevention mission for which they were founded, DHS’s Janet Napolitano now plans to battle a religious war of “climatic jihad”. Here’s what happened the last time Washington DC took on weather in February 2010 (but not climate). The capital was shut down of course. Now that’s “environmental justice”. Look for pat downs at airports soon for those carrying concealed carbonated beverages.
From CNS News.
Napolitano Says DHS to Begin Battling Climate Change as Homeland Security Issue
Friday, December 17, 2010
By J. Brady Howell
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) – At an all-day White House conference on “environmental justice,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.
Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department’s recently created “Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force.”
Napolitano explained that the task force was charged with “identifying and assessing the impact that climate change could have on the missions and operations of the Department of Homeland Security.”
According to the former Arizona governor, the task force would address specific questions, including:
“How will FEMA work with state and local partners to plan for increased flooding or wildfire or hurricane activity that is more serious than we’ve seen before? What assistance can the Coast Guard bring to bear to assist remote villages in, for example, Alaska which already have been negatively affected by changes up in the Arctic?”
The findings from the Homeland Security Department (DHS) also asked: “(H)ow can we focus on how climate change is going to affect our rural citizenry including those who live along our borders both northern and southern?”
…
The conference did not define “environmental justice,” and the only reference to the task force that can be found is on the DHS Web site. The June 2010 Department of Homeland Security Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan states “climate change has the potential to accelerate and intensify extreme weather events which threaten the nation’s sustainability and security.”
Complete story here
Ian H [wisely] says:
December 20, 2010 at 3:22 pm
“Homeland security seem to be engaged in empire building.”
No Kidding? Hardly noticed.
Power Corrupts and they are fleeting, courting with desire for absolutes. These are base desires and not the product of stupidity, incompetence, insanity or any motives other than the simple desire to expand and conquer whatever they can touch until they are stopped. Let us begin the process.
Find the bomber, not the bomb.
I’m waiting for Janet to notice that by the same logic she’s using with AGW, educational shortcomings, heavy traffic on our highways, obesity, speeding, mistreatment of chickens, the goat shortage and a host of other problems affect national security. Her mandate is unlimited! Now that I think about it, the performance of President Obama and the Joint Chiefs have a huge effect on national security and also fall under Janet’s definition of her authority.
The climate scenarios which would overlap with any security issues would, I think, specifically be “climate conflicts” over water, food, and energy shortages. They also project refugee populations, as well as a supposed increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters.
“Climate conflicts” and “climate change response” means training the Coast Guard in actions to control rioting, which would be brought about by resource shortages, as far as I can see. At least it has been spoken of in those terms already in an Australian Defense White Paper.
It is interesting how these pure white doves of the left, who normally do not have a hawkish bone in their bodies, suddenly find their inner hawk when it is a question of directing security efforts at our own population.
It’ll probably cost millions to get back to “duck and cover”
Hot air? In Washington, sounds right.
A snow job? Look out your window. Am near Washington, and I see a bunch of it right now.
Both? Neither?
How about we just defund the entire agency in the appropriations bill, and make them rush in, begging to get any monies back, to support the few line items that represent things worth doing in the first place.
This move by the DHS makes perfect sense. Who else is more qualified to torture the numbers until they confess to CAGW?
I see a friday funny editorial cartoon in the making
Of course with all the snow and rain it will have to be water boarding.
I think they should be a little more concerned about the agreement between Iran and Venezuela to acquire medium range missiles, positioned in Venzuela, that can hit the US soft underbelly. 2012 cannot come soon enough.
Anthony, I know the Department of Homeland Security…..I train with the Department of Homeland Security…..and believe me, WUWT ain’t the Department of Homeland Security! Thank God for that!!
*sigh* The entire US Government drinks climate-change Kool-Aid, believe me. Military, DHS, Public Health, EPA, State, DOE, whatever. Drives me nuts! Their faith in CAGW dogma is absolutely unflappable, sad but true.
Drop me a note if you ever want advice for how to respond to a smallpox attack…
Napolitano: We’re working “364 days a year” to fight terror
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/20/napolitano-were-working-364-days-a-year-to-fight-terror/
Well this explains it all. This nitwit has too much time on her hands.
Useful advice here:
http://www.globalchange.gov/
Newest buzzword is “climate resiliency.” This junk is making its way through all federal agencies.
I suspect Ms. Napolitano would be as adept at aiding the people of Alaska improve their survivability prospects as Kate Gosselin
Hey, why not? If they didn’t go after the climate, they’d have to actually improve the economy, protect us from terrorists, fix Social Security, etc. “Fixing” a non-existent problem is certainly a lot easier than addressing real ones, eh?
eadler:
If one accepts that natural disasters and climate refugees will impact the people of the US in years to come, Homeland Security and specifically FEMA , should take that into account in their planning.
Especially given that Obama, Napalitano, enc., should have already resigned upon claiming they could not possibly control illegal immigration with fences and patrols, I’m counting on them continuing right along with making the worst plan possible.
So now they are on the same side as Bin Laden.
How will they waterboard innocent people with all this frozen water?
Disband DHS, now.
Adaptation is obviously the prefered approach to so-called climate change. Certainly preferable to trying to reduce co2 emissions. So whats not to like?
What next, I wonder: Flat cola, flat beer, flat wine; No one allowed to open a beverage with fizz because it’ll release the dreaded CO2 into the atmosphere. And I thought the chumps in Westminster were bad.
Ah, yes, now they’re bugging the grapevine–the answers in the wind.
when will the y generation wake up, all thay care about is i pods and emailing so please god help us before it is too late
They should go after so-called climatologists and railway engineers who have sold the government BS like
– Manhattan’s West Ave. will be flooded
– winter snow will disappear
and got paid billions for their lies, much worse than any Ponzi scheme.
Janet’s DHS is all about “man-caused disasters.” I do believe she can do the most about the biggest man-caused disaster, this administration, by keeping her gums flapping for the next two years. She’s a window.
And yes, a previous post is right, it’s the entire Kool-Aid drinking bureaucracy. The precautionary principle (I dream of a disaster and ask “why not?”) and mission creep are the wind beneath the bureaucrat’s wings.
If last year was Snowmaggedon, surely it’ll be Snowpocalypse this year?
Ah dang, too late…
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Snowpocalypse