March 5, 2019
By James Taylor
A review of all risk factors reveals that imposing carbon dioxide restrictions on the U.S. economy would diminish, rather than enhance, American military preparedness.
Global warming activists claim climate change poses a threat to America’s military and national security. Their primary assertion is that alleged negative impacts from global warming—such as crop failures, droughts, and extreme weather events—create political, social, and military upheaval. To enhance our military security, these activists claim America should impose carbon dioxide restrictions on the U.S. economy and the American people.
The United States sustains the most powerful military in the world, because the dominant U.S. economy enables policymakers to spend more on military preparedness than any other nation. America’s continuing ability to field a powerful military depends on the United States retaining its status as the world’s dominant economic power. Proposals to restrict U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and impose expensive, jobs-killing energy sources on the economy present a clear and present danger to military strength. This is especially true because the Paris Climate Agreement and other international climate agreements target Western-style democracies and impose no similar carbon dioxide restrictions on many potentially hostile nations.
America has more combined coal, oil, and natural gas resources than any other nation in the world. It leads the world in oil reserves and coal reserves, and it is fourth in the world in natural gas reserves.,, Only one other nation has even half as much of these resources as the United States.
Because of its significant role in the globe’s most important energy markets, America has unique economic advantages, international leverage, and military power. By contrast, China is the leading source of the rare earth minerals that are necessary to produce wind and solar power equipment. Making a political decision to transform the U.S. and global economies from American-dominant energy sources to Chinese-dominant energy sources would pose new and severe threats to American international influence and U.S. national security.
The negative economic and geopolitical impacts of carbon dioxide emissions restrictions and an attempted transformation to a wind- and solar-powered economy are amplified by the lack of any substantial national security threats related to Earth’s ongoing modest warming. It is speculative and dubious to assert that crop failures, droughts, or other negative climate events occurring overseas would reduce U.S. national security. However, even if that were the case, the frequency and severity of such unfortunate events is diminishing as Earth modestly warms, not increasing. Rather than being a threat multiplier, the impacts of ongoing modest warming serve as a threat reducer.
The U.S. military can and should prepare for a full range of plausible threats to national security, but preparing for all conceivable threats does not mean all such events are likely to occur. Restricting America’s energy freedom and stifling the economy impose a “cure” that is more damaging than the asserted national security threat.
A review of all risk factors reveals that imposing carbon dioxide restrictions on the U.S. economy would diminish, rather than enhance, American military preparedness. Proposed carbon dioxide restrictions would reduce U.S. economic strength, America’s international energy influence, and U.S. military strength.
To enhance national security, policymakers should (1) encourage greater production of U.S. domestic conventional energy resources, (2) encourage optimal use of domestic conventional energy resources in the American economy, (3) support more U.S. conventional energy exports, and (4) resist calls to impose carbon dioxide restrictions on the economy.
* This Policy Brief has been developed in collaboration with Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, U.S. Navy (retired), former chief of Naval Operations and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
HT/David B
Right on! I want a USA Military running on high octane and focused on the threats from China and Russia. Climate Change? We already have a Military adapted to polar to jungle conditions, Climate Change will not affect them. Keep political considerations out of the Military? Their job is to break things and kill people.
Yes, but we can replace our Air Force with high speed rail and not only reduce emissions but increase payload capacity. We’ll get rid of the need for parachutes and replace them with inflatable suits to help cushion the impact when our train troopers jump off.
Just give them Parafoil Wings and let them travel via weather fronts…Storm Troopers
+10
Keep the parachutes and just launch the soldiers into battle with rail guns. Not straight on, mind you, but with the appropriate loft.
The enemy won’t be looking up for paratroopers. They’ll be watching the trains.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
I don’t know, I totally love the fact that it will be cost-prohibitive and require higher taxes, but I think that the high speed rail bridge over, or tunnel under, the Bering Strait might take too long, and the Russians might figure it out before it’s completed? They tend to be clever like that. I don’t mean to commit a microaggression by failing to affirm your idea, but frankly we need something a bit more practical.
After putting, like, ten seconds of thought into this, my suggestion would be to use wooden, wind-powered aircraft carriers that carry miniature solar powered Hindenberg-style dirigibles. We can drop organic fair-trade certified non-GMO vegan food on them to nauseate them and soften them up for the invasion by unaccompanied minors.
No need to use the expensive stuff, Tofu will do.
Tofu…as long as you’re Putin it like that…Protect the Tofuti Beasts and Tofurkies
I want a US Navy that can reach agressor nations without having to stop and recharge every 1000 miles.
I want a US Army that can engage on the balltefield without having to stop and recharge every 300 miles.
I want a US Air Force that can travel the globe over instead of having to stop and recharge overnight before continuing.
Until there is a Viable Replacement for Fossil Fuels (inexpensive and plentiful) unreliable renewables can’t compete and can’t fuel a modern military
Nuclear powered ships are not constrained by fuel limitations.
But Nuclear Power is Verboten by Greenies
Just equip the smaller ships with solar panels. I’m sure, since much of their missions are tropical, they could save much oil, money, and dollars. They’d never run out of fuel. (need I “sarc”?)
Even better, how about equipping the ships to utilize wind power!
We could use large cloth surfaces suspended by a system of masts and spars to catch the wind.
Such a navy would clearly be the most advanced in all the world.
Well then, I guess we better put the military on hold until we have cheap abundant fusion power. Our adversaries will understand and just wait.
Bryan A, Why have a navy, air force or army? Anyone wanting to invade the USA can just go to Mexico and walk across. If we had been attacked during Obama’s administration what would his response have been? If ships loaded with a fully armed strike force was detected heading for NY harbor when would he have responded? Immediately upon detection? When they passed the Statute of Liberty? When the first soldier set foot on our homeland? What would he have said to the soldier? Perhaps offer aggression therapy? Try to confiscate his gun under NY strict control laws?
Reds want to destroy America ….who knew ? /s
It’s easiest for them to destroy the west from within our educational institutions.
sarcWhich represents worse thinking — the underlying climate science, or the policy prescriptions offered in response? Discuss.
I would consider the proposed “remedy” for AGW as worse than the “science” behind AGW. As the Green New Deal and the Energiewende, and other green programs reject nuclear power, they would engender a collapse of industrial society if one attempted to convert totally to wind and solar.
The NGD is not even in the same league as EnergieWende.
The Democrat’s NGD is much closer to the Mao’s GLP (Great Leap Forward). Including the adolescents who pushed both as foot soldiers.
NGD = GLP
P?
They work in tandem. They are coupled. They support each other.
– The climate pseudoscientist-rentseekers get their grants for delivering politically useful crap disguised as science. They then feed this crap to the ignorant masses with using an biased media who refuses to ask questions or allows others to ask questions in their newspapers, TV shows, etc.
– The politicians get their justifications for more taxes, more bureaucracy, more control, and provide more grants to the rentseeking scientists. The SJWs support the politicians, as long as the pols roll in social justice issues with their climate change crap.
Although she dances around the subject, even Judith Curry admits that nothing is actually being measured in terms of radiative forcing as used to calculate sensitivity.
If we’re not measuring anything of significance regarding CO2’s ability to ‘warm’ the Earth, how will we know when it changes? How do we model something that can’t be measured? How do we derive a set of scientific laws, axioms, postulates, formulae if nothing is being measured?
How do we apply science when there is no science to apply? The military is left speculating?
Models.
Or
Super Models
/sark
Exponential curves vs sinusoidal curves.
vs jiggling curves
By lying.
Thoms Homer – March 20, 2019 at 10:11 am
Obviously, if they can’t measure CO2’s warming ability, then they can’t honestly claim that the CO2 is causing any warming. But dishonesty and incompetence is rampant.
And it is MLO that the per se pro-CAGW “climate scientists” really don’t want to know how much the current quantity of atmospheric CO2 is contributing to the “warming” of near-surface air temperatures.
They DO NOT want to know ….. and they are not about to try to find out. And that is because as long as they don’t know, …… then they can claim how ever much “warming” that they want to and no one can prove otherwise.
They can create a computer “model” of most anything they want to, …… but they can’t measure an abstract “model” and they can’t actually measure a computer generated “model”. All you get is SISO.
If they REALLY wanted to know the “warming” effect of atmospheric CO2 they would perform an actual, factual physical experiment ….. and measure it.
Cheers, Sam C
Never heard of SISO. Is that something like Stupid In – Stupid Out?
Close enough .……………. SISO (feces in feces out)😊
Samuel C Cogar: ‘If they REALLY wanted to know the “warming” effect of atmospheric CO2 they would perform an actual, factual physical experiment ….. and measure it.’
Thank you – that’s precisely correct!
I have a series of simple questions about the effects of atmospheric CO2 and they remain unanswered. Because nothing is being measured, we can’t even begin to formulate equations to derive fundamental answers.
And I thank you, Thoms H, for your response.
And ps, that aforesaid “physical experiment” would cost very little money to construct, …….. very little time or energy to perform ……. and the results would be 99.99% accurate.
War is real. CAGW is modelling fantasy. The military is very political at the General Officer(Admiral) level. There are plenty of Obama holdovers who were willing to play the game.
+10 and then some
+101
+1010
101010 (= 42 in decimal)
Every single officer who promoted the use of cellulosic based ‘green’ fuel for the Navy, when there was none to be had, anywhere in the world, at any price, should be busted to 2nd Lt. and drummed out on a conditional, (stupid) discharge. Their pensions should be that of a green 2nd Lt., if they’ve already qualified, and they should not allowed to serve in reserves. Just too damned stupid.
Of course, if I had my way, this would also apply to every Obama civilian appointee as well, although they would just be fired and no pensions whatever. We taxpayers cannot afford to pay for this level of stupid.
I wish Admiral Hyman Rickover had lived long enough to blister the ears of Obama and his military officers.
Key phrase:
…from American-dominant energy sources to Chinese-dominant energy sources”
Such as wind and solar power. No way.
Indeed!
I believe we are, at present, losing the messaging battle on climate change. People are bombarded with a constant drumbeat that climate change is a threat to mankind. They accept it, not as a rational proposition, but because it is a continuous message that they hear from voices of authority.
But that’s no reason to give up.
I suspect that minds will change when the cost of protecting us from climate change becomes known, when people are faced with real decisions about the way they use energy, and its cost. When people have to think about the cost of battling climate change, they will become more interested in what they are being protected from. And once people start making inquiries about what they are sacrificing for, attitudes are likely to shift in favor of the skeptical side.
‘I believe we are, at present, losing the messaging battle on climate change.’
They’ve also been convinced that the counter-argument is coming from established ‘bad-guys’.
whether we like it or not, this is not a “scientific” battle, not in any sense of the word, not anymore. This is a purely political battle of wills, and it cannot be engaged in on any other level.
When the congress-critters have to vote for economy crippling spending/taxes to change the weather, you will see the whole thing collapse. The Senate voting on GND will end the debate; Markley, et al know it.
Dave – I have thought the same thing: “When the rubber hits the road, our politicians will snap to”. But, then, look at Australia; they’ve driven themselves and their grids into a real mess. Look at Germany; the country is full of solid engineers, yet they’ve let their government denuclearize in favor of windmills and solar panels. Look at England; they are busily replacing baseline power systems with wood-pellet-burning plants and buying the pellets from the US! Meanwhile, the Indians, Chinese, Russians are plowing along, straight ahead. My confidence suffers…
Dave Yaussy, HA, ha, ha.Do you have any liberal friends (30% of population minimum). You say, minds will change, people have to think, people start making inquiries….you’re kidding right? just forgot the /sarc?
So-called climate change is not an existential threat. Anyone in the leadership ranks of the US Armed Forces who thinks it is should have an extended deployment to the Aleutians.
CAGW is not a threat at all because CAGW does not exist in the real world.
Most military people are practical people. Don’t expect many of them to get exercised over the non-threat of CAGW. They won’t normally contradict the Commander-in-Chief in public even when they don’t agree with him (in this case, Obama). They will salute and then carry on with their defending of the real threats to the U.S.
On the money. Admiral Hayward is a great military leader who remains mission focused. From WW2 through the VN War he has always demonstrated his commitment to the people sent into harms way. The enemy doesn’t give a flip about bio-fueled carriers unable to project power into distant trouble spots.
A capable military is not a large dollar amount unwisely spent. It’s a mission focused highly capable force with the right training and equipment.
Excellent summation of reality.
The best part!?
It’s nice to know the Titelys of America are over-ridden by reality and facts and diminished to waving placards and mouthing empty platitudes.
America needs a lot of energy produced if we are going to continue to live the lifestyles we are accustomed to. We believe to do that we must manage our energy sources wisely.
Americas high grade coal should be used to produce our electricity. With our Carbon Capture Utilization System Clean Coal combustion is possible. https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo A coal power plant will put into the atmosphere less CO2 than a natural gas power plant.
Our natural gas should be used for residential and commercial space heating and by industry to produce all those other products we need daily. Natural gas should be used as efficiently as possible. For every 1 million Btu’s of heat energy that is recovered out of the combusted natural gas exhaust and this heat energy is utilized, 117 lbs of CO2 will not be put into the atmosphere. http://www.SidelSystems.com
Our oil should be used for transportation purposes. Natural gas and LPG can also be used. The manufactures of these vehicles have been making tremendous strides at improving the efficiency of these modes of transportation.
Using our sources of energy wisely should provide us many generations of enjoyable life.
Good grief, give it a rest, will you? No one has any right to claim what the best purpose is for fossil fuels. Let the market decide. Of course we should use coal, but forget the idea of CCS – that is just economic folly based on fraudulent pseudoscience. Our CO2 is nothing but a boon to mankind, and to all life. We need more of it, not less.
Bruce. Not CCS as we know that is to expensive and there is no ROI.
Watch the video. https://youtu.be/RQRQ7S92_lo We do CCU. We turn the CO2 into money and jobs.
Not only do we take the CO2 out of the exhaust but also out of the atmosphere.
This is good for America’s economy, and if it’s good for the environment, then that is a bonus.
All you show is cartoons.
Where is the plant that is using your technology and is not only saving money but generating additional revenue? Where is your demo plant? Give us a heat and material balance demonstrating a healthy ROI.
And Bruce’s point was the any investment aimed solely at reducing CO2 exhaust is counterproductive.
CO2 already means money and jobs when you leave it in the atmosphere.
Taking CO2 out of the atmosphere is not good for anyone’s economy or environment and it the antithesis of a bonus.
Let the ratepayers have a say like they used to in prior generations before multi-billion dollar experiments came along. That was back when utility commissions represented the consumers.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/after-kemper-new-clean-coal-plants-face-long-odds/446288/
You seem to have forgotten NUCLEAR.
We are focused on the fossil fuels we have available and in good supply.
Ya mean nucular?
/snark
Nuclear should soon experience an imminent comeback. Nuscale corp. will lead the way with their small scale modular reactor.
copy/
NuScale’s technology is the world’s first and only SMR to undergo design certification review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC is scheduled to complete its review of NuScale’s design in September 2020
Reference: NuScale and Romanian Energy Company Sign Agreement to Explore SMRs for Romania,Tuesday, March 19, 2019 5:00 am PD
Other nuclear alternatives are either obsolete (large conventional) or decades from being commercial (molten salt because of corrosion issues & fusion, even more so, is material design challenged because of the extreme temperature requirement).
copy/ ornl. Gov /Workshop
…pave the way to understanding and predicting a class of interfacial phenomena that are serious concerns in designing commercial MSRs with long operating lives (tens of years) that do not require reprocessing of the salt….. the prediction of the corrosion of structural components by the salt at the inside surfaces and at the heat exchanger, enabling the design of new materials and processes to minimize corrosion and the prediction of material lifetimes under reactor conditions… advances will enable the design of reactor materials and alloy compositions. This will accelerate the qualification of novel materials for MSR applications.
Reference: https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/Molten%20Salt%20Workshop_Final_092917.pdf
Putting extremely energy-intensive “carbon-capture” on coal plants, which means removing useful plant-food that would otherwise help our plants & crops, is not wise “use of energy”. Kinda the opposite, actually.
Beng135
Our CCU System requires no steam from the power plant, unlike CCS that can consume up to 30% of the power plants steam to “strip” the CO2 out of their amine.
Our CCU System uses less than 1% of the power plants electricity, unlike CCS will consume approximately 15% of the electricity produced by the power plant to cool and compress and pump the CO2 down $1 million dollar per mile pipelines to it’s destination where it is once again compressed and pumped into a hole in the ground.
We read there is a threat of rising ocean water. Our produced calcium carbonate can be used to build sea walls to protect America’s shore lines.
Spend money and energy to solve a problem that never exists.
What is it with you trolls and your investment scams?
Now THERE’S the security risk – something I’ve also been saying for a long time.
And yet another example of progressives projecting the damage their doing on others.
So why do you feel this is a security risk?
CO2 is a holy gas that be-eth a foundational building block of all life on earth. What wouldest thou do? Spanketh CO2’s bottom and sendeth it to it’s room in the bowels of the earth? Nay! CO2’s room is in the atmosphere and oceans where it blesseth all life. Earthly life receiveth CO2 and sayeth, “I feel good!” Therefore, be-eth not a Debbie Downer and raineth on CO2’s parade, lest thou be cursed.
But-eth also, not let us forget the blessed carbonated beverages.
Carbonated Malt Beverage??
Hoppy Libations to all
Hoppy Trails to you….Until we meet again
Anything that undercuts our national energy grid, power supply, our independence and sovereignty, our ability to clothe, heat and feed our citizens, retards our transportation, or is generally steadfastly,dedicated to condemning and destroying our way of life and right to exist – yeah, I’d call that a security threat, to say the least.
Scott Adams advises the most effective, persuasive way talk down someone who is advocating “green” policies is to say
I don’t have an opinion about the merits of this proposal but I do know it is very very RISKY.
The word Risky is the linguistic kill shot.
Yes, and it will be much more obvious to everyone after the next over reach socialist President causes the next Great Recession with attendant energy policy crisis.
Everyone is waiting for something. The EU is waiting for the post Trump era to further their protectionist agenda while Russia and China are waiting for the next distracted Obama-style enviro-socialist to start more land and sea grabs against their neighbors. Ukraine and east Asia need to worry….more.
We are praying that there will never be a socialist President. We love America and do not want to see a socialist party turn America into a Venezuela or a North Korea or an Iran.
We are the richest country in the world. We have energy and we can produce all the food we need.
I am with President Trump and promoting Clean Coal, and clean natural gas. We all want clean air to breath and clean water to drink. We want the freedom to jump into our cars and pickup’s and go where we want to go, and get on an airplane if that gets us there faster. I like my motorhome and we love camping and skiing in the snow.
What’s not to like about America the way it is today? We are free and America’s economy is booming. Most Americans have realized higher income and lower taxes. What’s not to like about that?
We already had a Socialist President…
He tried to turn the country into an Obamanation
No doubt they will be running schemes at the UN right up to the moment of impact of the humanity-ending meteorite impact into the atmosphere. The subterranean nematodes can debate that point years later.
A little OT:
Trump just gave a speech in Lima, Ohio, where he said, “if a windmill goes up within sight of your house, your home’s value drops by 65 percent!”
Some people might consider that a national economic security matter. 🙂
A map of the U.S. posted by NASA and purportedly showing the human CO2 contribution based on satellite measurement actually shows a lack of any consequential human CO2 contribution. Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth, for example, are shown to contribute one part per million or less of CO2.
…such as crop failures (FOOD OUTPUT AT ALL TIME HIGHS WORLD-WIDE) , droughts (NO TRENDS) and extreme weather events (TORNADOES DOWN, HURRICANES DOWN, FIRES…STABLE TO DOWN—
Dumsheets. The leftist pigs disgust me.
Strewth, I thought every one would have figured it out by now. All future wars to be conducted by computer models. Biggest battles of all time. No-one gets really hurt and if you lose, hit the reset button.
We have the technology..
No amount of logic, reason, evidence or proof will change the minds of the ‘useful idiots’, profiteers and genocidal globalists pulling the strings. AGW is the foundation of an eco-fascist new world order and unless we get real about what’s truly at stake we could lose everything. And all that’s holding them back is the White House.
I hate to say it yet again, but the Greens are not interested in “Saving the
Planet” That is the Smoke screen for the Useful idiots” to swallow.
The Greens are the new Communists, convinced that this time they will get things right.
Of course they all suffer from the delusion that they will end up as the leaders, i.e. bosses, whereas they will be either be shot or become the slaves.
MJE VK5ELL
Oh! its from Heartland… we can class it as political and fossil fuel industry lobbying then, rather than a serious proposal.
Meanwhile Russia and China are basing the military/economic strategy on a warming arctic giving access to more resources.
Oh, it’s from Griff, we can class it as delusional nonsense without a look at what was written.
The EU has been trying to slow the U.S. economy since economic power transfers directly to military power and cultural influence. China and the Russians will just support anything that taxes or distracts the U.S. They all understand that they cannot compete fairly with the American freedom-economic award system. Every concern that seems to threaten U.S. progress gets destroyed or trivialized by the Americans. Examples include:
1. Soviet Union/Cold War: the U.S. drove them into bankruptcy.
2. Productivity stagnation: Moore’s law continues and technological advancements in software and communications (internet) led by the U.S. reverse this.
3. Peak Oil/Coming Energy Crisis: U.S. lead companies develop new technologies to tap hidden reserves or the massive U.S. natural gas supplies.
4. Anti-business Obama Administration: in reality Obama prolonged the Great Recession recovery by 18 to 24 months, still, even the most powerful office in the nation could not suppress development – for example, gas prices did not go to $ 10.00/gallon as desired in order to simulate the green movement the way they saw fit.
5. Increasing U.S. median age an expanding retirement class (baby boomers): does not matter to the U.S. because it’s still the #1 destination to relocate for the highly skilled and educated, they will continue to help fuel the U.S. growth.
Unfortunately the American Left, Russians, Chinese, EU and the UN have found a great tool in the Green Movement or CO2 fear-mongering. Damper the fuel supply and you’ll slow the economy and correspondingly military power and cultural influence. When I look at the American Left/AOC and their embrace of this, the following comments ring loudly:
1. Those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.
2. Socialism is great, until you run out of other people’s money.
3. Once an entitlement is provided it can never be withdrawn.
4. To the American Left it’s always an economic zero-sum game. That is, for example, Elon Musk’s net worth of 20 billion dollars means to them that other Americans are out 20 billion. They have no understanding of wealth creation because most of them have never created anything, period.
5. For the American Left, equality of results (not opportunity) is paramount and at the expense of improving living standards for all.
The Climate Change narrative gives them the opportunity that was denied by the U.S. mindset, progress and logic. Whatever their Green Deal wealth tax gets originally established at, say 2% of 10 million, they know they’ll have to lower it significantly after the programs are established. It’ll have to invade the middle class and drop from 10 million to say 200 K after they soon realize there’s not enough wealthy people around but have the paycheck to paycheck workers and fixed income folks addicted.
Like the others listed above, the “threat” of increasing atmospheric CO2 will be resolved or trivialized by American ingenuity and technology within 10 years and without derailing the U.S. economy. At that point it’ll be very entertaining to see what emerges as their new crusade, hopefully this’ll occur before socialism has a chance to infect the U.S.
Within 48 hours the temperature will drop heavily in the Northeast US.
