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.
By James Taylor
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 plausiblethreats 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.
Full report PDF here
* 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.
I have long suspected this was at least a partial goal.
It’s at the very least, definitely a by-product. But I credit a lot less of this to happenstance and unintended consequences than I used to.
The mask is coming off the gorgon.
Kim Jong Un’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is merely a false front for developing an extensive nuclear power program to bring his nation into the modern world. He has said many times that CO2 is the real danger to his country.
Why – because it might boost crop yields? Because the warming it (allegedly) causes might make NK winters less severe? What is this “threat,” exactly?!
LMFAO
“because it might boost crop yields?”
And glorious tractor production numbers to harvest all those crops……
You knew I was joking, right?
It’s almost as if those who ascribe to the Warmunist ideology hate the US.
Oh wait, they do.
It’s not so much hate as it is envy . . . jus’ sayin’ . . .
No. It’s hate.
Bernie honeymoons in Moscow. He just hired David Sirota, a columnist and political activist who once praised the economic policies of former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez as a Senior campaign advsor and speech writer.
In a 2013 column for Salon, Sirota credited Chavez’s “full-throated advocacy of socialism” with achieving an economic miracle. “As shown by some of the most significant indicators, Chavez racked up an economic record that a legacy-obsessed American president could only dream of achieving,” he wrote.
Clearly Bernie hates US democratic institutions and the US Constitution. How could he ever follow the oath that the office of the US President would require him to take?
Any half competent military officer should know her history. In particular, she should have a clear understanding of the role of oil in WW2. link
Any strategic analysis that does not fully consider the importance of fuel, is criminally wrong.
Or deliberate.
China fully understands that. They fully back the “progressive” position that the U.S. should convert to wind and solar as soon as possible in order to “save the environment” while they will convert once they have achieved “full economic development.” I’m surprised they haven’t already offered to purchase our “out-of-date” coal and fossil fuel power plants and production facilities since we won’t be needing them in the near future. Of course the fact that they are “…the leading source of the rare earth minerals that are necessary to produce wind and solar power equipment” would have nothing to do with their position.
Admiral Chester Nimitz who led the investigation after Pearl Harbor, in his classified after-attack report and later in his personal memoirs recounted that Japanese Admiral Yamamoto’s biggest strategic blunder of the entire war was not following up the December 7th attacks on Pearl Harbor 7th Fleet ships with an attack the next day on the bunker oil fuel tanks.
Those stock piles of naval ship fuel in the tank farms at Pearl Harbor would have taken almost 2 years to replace and replenish. They were wide open vulnerable to easy attack by Japanese dive bombers had they simply followed up the next day. Without that fuel, the US Navy would have been unable to challenge the Japanese navy as they immediately did at Midway and Guadalcanal Solomon Island Campaigns. Both those campaigns stopped the Japanese advances to Australia and the envisioned Hawaiian Island invasions for which Midway Island was to be the first taken.
“Global warming activists claim climate change poses a threat to America’s military and national security.”
I always laughed at this BS claim.
Climate Change (TM) POLICIES have always been the REAL threat – to the U.S. military and national security, to its economy, its prosperity, its future, you name it. We can be free or we can be Venezuela – that’s NOT an exaggeration, but the deluded idiots pushing “climate change” panic are completely clueless about it.
IMHO it should read: “Climate change activists pose a threat to America’s military and national security.”
Actual climate change… not so much.
“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.”
Amplified in what way?
Perhaps amplified should be changed to: obviated or contra-indicated
“Global warming activists claim climate change poses a threat to America’s military and national security.”
They make this claim even though they can’t even show evidence that CAGW is real. It’s just another fraudulent, unsubstantiated claim by Alarmists to further their CAGW scam.
And China,
…they believe that dictator,
will be real “good” and only take the S. Pacific, Taiwan, Pearl Harbor, etc.
(and Calif will give them everything outside of the 2 mile “read line” off the coast)
and will only bring online 1 coal plant every week…..
So, everyone, trust China to do “what is right”….
….and there is this bridge in Brooklyn I’ll sell’ya, cheap.
We need more clear and accurate thinking like this. It’s obvious that the CC narrative is driven by the media ….. the same media that has convinced Americans that gender assignment is up to the individual and doesn’t happen at birth. Anyone that doesn’t see the complicit propaganda support by the media in dividing America is naive.
But John Kerry and Barrack Obama have repeatedly told us that Global Warming-Climate Change is the US’s biggest security threat – an existential threat to humanity.
Many Democrats in Congress are describing Action of Climate Change as the current day generations’ WW2-moment, and we must immediately embrace socialism and super high taxes to fight it.
Please, don’t tell me they are lying. Surely not.
/s (of course)
The sad thing is the Left and their media lapdogs constantly point out Trump’s fibs on things that don’t really matter, whilst they keep telling huge whopper lies and the ignorant reporters never challenge them.
Today, all the Dim-witted democratic-socialist candidates running for their party’s presidential nomination are constantly lying to us (and themselves) on things that matter most — national security, protecting our energy-dependent high tech economy, nuclear threat from Iran (a nation where its national leaders regularly participate in Death to America parades), border security and uncontrolled immigration, and domestic energy security.
If one really sits back and looks at all the things they say, you really have to wonder why they want to destroy this country. Really. I’m serious.
Socialist Bernie could very well get the Dim-wits nomination and he is a foundational threat to this country and our Constitution. And that is scary.
Try for a minute and imagine any of the Dim-witted Democratic Party candidates affirming the oath of office for US President on January 20, 2021:
“I do solemnly swear (affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Does anyone think Bernie (or most of the other Dim-wits running) would actually follow that oath when it suited politically to ignore whatever part of the Constitution their support base demanded?
I mean seriously? All these Dim-wits, to the last one, wants to unilaterally re-interpret or out-right disregard the the Constitution’s 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th Amendments, ignore the “Takings Clause”, utterly disregard the Senate’s constitutional role in ratification of Executive-negotiated treaties that impose real consequences on domestic affairs, and the States’ and individual rights, and de facto ignore the Electoral College process for choosing a President.
To wit:
– They want the US to stay in Obama’s Paris “Agreement,” as if it were some kind of domestically enforceable ratified treaty.
– Democrats want to ban hate speech, by whatever definition of “hate” they deem appropriate. And no one here at WUWT will be safe from that reach once they can define “hate” as opposing ignorant pols like AOC or Markey or questioning politicized consensus climate science.
– Democrats want to trample on Judeo-Christian moral beliefs, and use police powers of the state to punish those that practice Christianity in their daily lives, and destroy the morals that are foundational to this country. If you’re a cake baker and you won’t bake a cake for me with a Lucifer figure smoking pot on top, then off to jail and/or fines for you (that really happened).
– Democrats want to ignore the constitutional construction of the Electoral College process because they know they can’t change it through amendment process, and they don’t like it because it keeps them from installing Chavez-like socialist as President.
– Democrats want to take People’s personal property rights without Just Compensation. The Obama EPA’s WOTUS rule was a prime example of an attempted taking without due process or compensation. And that EPA rule will rise from the dead if a Dimocrat is elected in 2020, because it was their only hope a choking off well fracking on private and state lands.
– Democrats want to use federal administrative powers to force universities/colleges to continue campus kangaroo courts, to dish out #metoo social justice per whatever rules or reasons the current SJW-class demands, without any regard for due process or fairness to the accused.
– We’ve got Cory Booker openly campaigning to register all guns and require a federally-issued license to all gun owners. The words “shall not be infringed” simply does not matter to Left. If they could get away with that, then there are no limits to what they could do. The Left would then license “free speech,” require pastors/priests and bishops to obtain Federally issued “clergy licenses,” require media outlets be registered and get “media licenses”.
Many of today’s Democrats are an existential threat our US Constitution and its enshrined liberties and rights of the People. Democrats with their economically destructive energy and Socialist-ideology polices are the real threat to US National Security. Their calls to eliminate fossil fuels by 2050 with no similar enforceable limits on China or Russia or Iran is just one example.
The only rational choice facing the US voters is keeping any of these individuals out of the White House, individuals who by their own admission WILL NOT faithfully follow, support, or defend the US Constitution.
‘If one really sits back and looks at all the things they say, you really have to wonder why they want to destroy this country. Really. I’m serious. ‘
Good post. My answer to the above question is simple, although it depends on which demographic perspective the individual is starting from:
One is guilt, and hate fostered by that guilt – ironically, in pursuit of absolution.
Then there is the hate fostered by the perception of victimization, which is just payback.
It’s what they’ve been taught.
“It’s what they’ve been taught.”
That’s right. Babies are not born hating the U.S. (or anything else), they have to learn it from somewhere.
+42 * 42^42 * 42infinities
Jefferson, Madison, and company specifically warned us about our current Democrat Party, and crafted our Constitution with them specifically in mind.
A sacred document to secure the rights of man…if we can keep it (Mr. Franklin warned).
Further evidence of what has happened with regards to Democrat’s leftward swing and ignoring the constitution and statute was the Barack Obama administration’s record at the US Supreme Court.
Barack Obama’s tenure can be summed up in one statement:
His administration’s government arguments across this wide variety of cases would essentially have allowed the executive branch to do whatever it wants.
Some hard, uncontestable facts on the Obama Legacy:
– Obama lost more Supreme Court cases to unanimous 9-0 decisions than any other modern era President (last 100 years).
– Obama had 44 cases his solicitors lost 9-0, Clinton is in 2nd place at 31, and Bush Jr is 3rd at 30. That means even the Libs like Sotomayor and RBG couldn’t tolerate what the mild-manner Obama was doing in many cases far beyond 2nd and 3rd places, at almost 50% higher level.
– the reason Obama did so poorly at the high court was because he saw no limits on federal—especially prosecutorial—power and accorded himself the ability to enact his own legislative agenda when Congress refused to do so.
For more examples and in-depth analysis read here:
https://thefederalist.com/2016/07/06/obama-has-lost-in-the-supreme-court-more-than-any-modern-president/
Does anyone think Bernie, Pocahantas, Booker, or Buttigig would, with their crazy-on-steroids approaches to governing and social justice demands, fair any better on certain Supreme Court challenges to their agendas than the mild-mannered, but whopper-telling Obama?
Of course not. Bernie would be the worst of the lot in terms of attacks on the US Constitution, but that’s not sayin’ much.
Which brings up why there was such a fierce, dirty battle waged by Democrats at Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings last Fall. The Supreme Court matters. While the Democrat’s claim it is Trump that represents a constitutional crisis, the reality is it’s clearly the Democrat’s trying to deflect attention from their own calls to disregard many parts of the US Constitution they do not like, but know they can’t amend. The attempts by Democrat-controlled states governments to circumvent Electoral College is but just one. There is clear historical evidence of the path to ignoring the Constitution with Obama and Democrats in general, and Bernie and the rest are certainly even worse in that regard.
And if we get a Dimocrat President in 2021, everyone can be certain they will attempt to pack 4 more liberal justices onto the high court to push their patently unconstitutional agenda of destroying the US energy economy with regulations and taxes in the name of Climate Justice, and with heightened attacks on individual liberties.
Art Robinson spent an enormous amount of time on his Petition Project but could never share the contact information of the like-minded Pennsylvanias like me that signed. In 2007 I wanted to mobilized a PA Task Force to counter the propaganda being generated. Unfortunately that information was never forthcoming as I understand it was stored with a geek named Jeremy Schievely ( spell ) who was not authorized to do share. As a result I have lobbied personally with little success due to virtue signaling legislators listening to an agenized PA DEP led by John Quigley who was forced to resign due collaborating with environmental NGOs. Did the Legislature claw back his salary? Did he go to jail? I don’t know.
As a result this is what Pennsylvanians now have to contend with:
https://cornwallalliance.org/2019/05/pennsylvania-climate-action-plan-crippling-costs-for-no-benefit/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1c0e340c-eed2-4ba9-b3ca-8de6a08f9cdf
I don’t love being right all the time.
“Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that’s wise.”
Joel I and others sacrificed a retirement trying to right this wrong. And millions of Pennsylvanians are going to suffer if this A-hole Governor Wolf joins the growing Green Cabal sponsored by Soros and Tom Steyer’s millions spread all over last years elections.
If anything I will leave this fuc*ing state to avoid the Grid failure and additional punitive taxes this proposal will create—is that the profit you are referring to.
Let’s suppose that the world climate did change – significantly either warmer or colder. Wouldn’t the nations of the world be better positioned to adapt to such a natural “disaster” if they were richer? The American military, despite some nations’ sabre rattling, keeps a lid on the militarism that would otherwise disrupt trade and decimate victim nations’ productivity and consumption. In sum, the US military is a huge factor in saving the people of Earth from many afflictions, including what might come through climate change. Those who talk about “policeman of the world” have generally a too-narrow perspective.
Finally a rational assessment of the importance of energy to our national security versus the absolute idiocy of the Obama/Kerry political dimwit era.
Joel O’Bryan ….”If one really sits back and looks at all the things they say, you really have to wonder why they want to destroy this country.” Davos, Club of Rome, etc. are nothing more than meetings of powerful useful idiots that have been convinced they shall be the Earths’ rightful stewards when chaos reigns and is saved by the “One World Government”. Soros recently said as much. First step is to divide humanity and you can’t do it if people are happy with their lot. And it’s all driven by the Marxists who have continually ….. since Das Kapital was published …. worked on undermining world order to their advantage. And they’re good at it.
Congressional Republicans and DJT: where is our Red Team/Blue Team approach to debunk these BS claims that AGW is a national security threat? This is low hanging fruit people. It’s up to us to prove that the science and policy are politically driven in this increasingly important area of public policy. We control 2/3’s of the government of the USA and 100% of the defense establishment. If not now when. If not on national security then on what issue are we willing to fight. Voter-Citizens will see that the rot is deep and threatens the foundations of our national structure. Do the right thing GOP.
The solution of course is simple, China has set us a very good example as to
why they are becoming more prosperous.
All we need to do is to round up all of the usual suspects, and put them
into re-education camps, where loud speakers keep blaring, “Greed is
good, greed is good. “”
MJE VK5ELL
sarc.
Great post, by someone with impeccable credentials. He has, after all, seen fire and rain.