Guest post by Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times.
The United States Navy has embraced climate change ideology. In an interview with the Boston Globe on March 9, Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, the Navy’s top officer in the Pacific, stated that climate change was the biggest long-term threat in the Pacific region and “probably the most likely thing that is going to happen…that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.” It’s troubling that the top officers of our Navy have accepted the misguided theory of man-made climate change.
Admiral Locklear continued, “Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.” Unfortunately, the admiral is only looking at part of the tropical storm picture. While 2012 was an active year for typhoons in the Pacific, global tropical storm activity continued to be at a low level for the seventh year in a row, according to storm expert Dr. Ryan Maue. Further, satellite data shows no increase in tropical storm frequency or strength over the last 30 years.
Not only is the Navy concerned about climate change, they are attempting to do something about it. Both the Navy and the Air Force have established goals to use a 50/50 blend of biofuel and petroleum-based fuel for planes and ships. Navy plans call for establishment of a “Green Strike Group” task force by 2016, fueled by the biofuel blend, and for alternative fuels to power half of all energy consumption by 2020.
In 2011, the Navy and the Departments of Energy and Agriculture publically committed to invest $510 million to create an “advanced biofuel industry” based on algae. Algae-based biofuel will be purchased for the “bargain price” of $26 per gallon, or more than six times the price of current petroleum-based fuel. But, according to a 2011 study by the Rand Corporation, “…the use of alternative, rather than petroleum derived, fuels offers no direct military benefits.”
So why does the Navy want to fly fighter jets on algae-based fuels? If domestic sourcing was the reason, fuel could be produced from US coal at much lower cost than from algae. It’s to reduce emissions of those nasty greenhouse gases, of course. US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus makes this clear: “We’re gonna be using American produced, American energy that…will make us better environmental stewards because we will be contributing less to climate change and burning much cleaner fuel.”
Admiral Locklear is also concerned about sea level change, stating in the interview: “You have real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level…If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.”
It is true that sea levels are rising. According to NASA, ocean levels have risen about 390 feet since that last ice age 20,000 years ago. Levels rose about 7‒8 inches during the last hundred years. But no scientist can tell when natural sea level rise ended and man-made sea level rise began. Nor is there any empirical evidence that sea level rise is accelerating. The 20-foot sea level rise predicted by some for the year 2100 is highly unlikely.
On March 5, Admiral Locklear told Congress that the automatic budget cuts from the sequester that went into effect on March 1 are already impacting his operations. He warned of cuts to aircraft flight hours, pay levels, and civilian jobs. He told the committee that the sequester cuts limit the ability of the Pacific Command to deter, assure, operate, and maintain its forces.
But the admiral did not mention impacts to the Navy’s algae-based biofuel program during his testimony. Could it be that futile efforts to stop climate change are a higher priority than the readiness of the United States Navy?
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
Just checked my callender .. Nope its not April 1st yet
Sorry ment to say ‘calendar’ … its late here 🙂
… Both the Navy and the Air Force have established goals to use a 50/50 blend of biofuel and petroleum-based fuel for planes and ships. …
Biofuel in boats and planes is an ongoing disaster, because alcohol dissolves fibreglass fuel tanks. Put E10 into your high performance sports racer and you’ll end up with a fireball.
I just hope the navy notices before this kills someone.
http://suite101.com/article/ethanol-fuel-problems-for-boaters-a6673
…It’s troubling that the top officers of our Navy have accepted the misguided theory of man-made climate change….
It’s hardly surprising.
The job of any chief executive is to ensure the survival of, and, ideally, the expansion of, his organisation. For the military, this means ensuring that there is a THREAT. If there is no credible threat, then discussions with Treasury officials become very one-sided. The last thing the military/intelligence sectors want is peace and brotherly love breaking out.
I have some inside knowledge of the atmosphere in these sectors during the early 1990s. They were terrified. They had just lost their reason for existence, and they were very happy that terrorism could be grown into the world-wide menace it is claimed to be nowadays. Or Cyber Warfare. Or, indeed, anything that would let them justify their existence. Have you notice how political speeches on ‘the threat’ are nowadays always laced with the statement that ‘this will be a long battle’? Indeed it will. It will last generations if possible.
That being the case, if citing ‘Climate Change’ is the way to unlock billions in funding, senior officers would not be doing their jobs properly if they did not make a bid for some of it…
I must always ask, how can supposedly educated people buy into ideas so obviously lacking in truth or basis in fact – so obviously false? Whatever happened to critical thinking? One doesn’t have to even be a scientist to see the failings of AGW -it is so readily, absolutely disproven by simple observation and even simpler arithmetic. And what kind of hubris does it take to say that you can control climate by controlling 20 percent (that’s the US share of CO2 emissions) of an infinitesimal factor that is itself an infinitesimal factor in climate change?
If our nation’s security is in the hands of people like Adm. Locklear, I fear for our safety. Obviously, as in Stalin’s choice of Semyon Budyenny to command the Soviet Army on the eve of the German invasion in 1941, politics trumps competence in our military, as in everything else these days.
I don’t know much about the US military but in the UK, much as we admire their bravery & resourcefulness in a crisis – forward thinking and analysis has never been their strong point.
That’s why we’ve got no aircraft carriers left in our navy and the two under construction won’t have any planes to fly off them when they’re ready.
I expect they too will by environmentally sound though – even if they can’t do anything very warlike.
The US Navy upper command has been liberal for a very long time. No surprise here.
So frankly what else do you expect out of what we used to call chairborne command?
Kindest Regards
He just proves military intelligence IS an oxymoron.
Foxgoose
“we’ve got no aircraft carriers left in our navy”
Excuse me!
What about HMS Illustrious and HMS ocean – Ocean carries helicopters which are aircraft
I wonder if the navy still dumps fuel in the air when bad weather has grounded the planes for many days and in order to use up their allotment of fuel-they resort to dumping it so as to be able to get their next allotment with no decrease.
And , the officers have to play the warming game or else no promotion. Alas.
Ask any fighter pilot about thrust, I imagine their overwhelming response would be: more.
They don’t care how much it costs, they need to know how their aircraft will perform.
Everyday.
When the president put forth climate change in his major list of concerns you could be assured that every official in the government, civilian or military, adopted that as his major concern. To not do so could have a major impact on your career, and I assume that Admiral Locklear has visions of CNO for his future.
I had Air Force Budget duties for almost half of my over 21-year career. When budgets were very tight during the Viet Nam war, Air Force management was very responsible to mission priorities and we fully funded primary mission needs, and cut the Hell out of support programs. The Navy, on the other hand, did what we called “taking care of the Admiral’s Barge”. The Navy would fully fund “nice to have” things, and then complain they didn’t have enough to effectively operate the carrier task groups. Guess who got more money? It wasn’t the Air Force. Superior financial management got us a poke in the eye, but we diligent professionals never learned to game the system. It looks like the Navy never forgot.
Notice the politically incorrect Playboy Bunny on the tail? I think that might be an especially good plane to fight Islamists with. Global warming, however, may require a new specialized branch of the Navy. How about the Carbon Tax Defenders?
As an aside, how many brave people gave their lives for their belief in the betterment of the human condition? So sad to see self-serving political actors turning it into something other.
“It’s troubling that the top officers of our Navy have accepted the misguided theory of man-made climate change.”
Theirs is not to reason why,….
They obviously have too much money and not enough to do with it, if they’re wanting to spend
$26 per gallon of kerosene for their airy-planes.
Will the “Green Strike Group” be using green bombs or depleted uranium amo?
Sequester be damned. The Navy will continue to squander billions upon unreliable wind and solar electricity and bio jet fuel and diesel. Mission priorities and protection of forces are concepts that Obama cannot comprehend. I hope God protects our troops because their commander cannot and will not.
Do they know about Peak Phosphate? “The Achilles’ Heel of Algal Biofuels”.
Dodgy Geezer….you nailed it. Anything with one or more stars(or Maple Leaf for us Canucks)is nothing more than a politically appointed executive hack who got there, not on smarts, but on their dedication to the current regime. Alas,it has been that way since at least WWII.
This bozo should be relived on the spot for hazarding his command.
Green Strike Group… puff, puff, take that CO2 bomb from the Navy.
iMO these clowns’ utterances are fertile grounds for a dishonorable discharge, if not a court martial and fairing squad.
Military people are a little slow.
Believe in climate change, get more money.