Military and Climate Change
In the article I read, the author discusses how he believes the United States military, an organization that believes in climate change and must confront in in the name of several security interests, may be uniquely situated to convince people that human-created climate change is real and needs to be addressed. The idea seems to be that the pro-climate-change-activism stance, being a primarily Democratic one, with its opposers being mostly Republicans, could be promoted by the United States military, a group typically more trusted by and concerned with similar goals as Republicans, in order to sway them en-masse. He points to the fact that many previously anti-climate-change-activism Republican lawmakers have in recent years developed plans to deal with the issue, although he offers no evidence that the military had a direct role in this, simply stating that perhaps framing global warming as a national security issue will increase the amount of people concerned with it.
Frankly I think his argument doesn’t really hold up. For the military to be a convincing voice in the climate change conversation, they need to be trusted by the people they intend to convince as both honest and correct, and I believe they fail both these criteria. For one the article seems to imply that while many climate deniers believe pro-climate-change scientists are paid off or otherwise manipulated by the Democratic elite, the military is, one might say, unshakably Republican. Especially given who some of the most prominent voices in the Democrat party have been in recent years, Clinton, Obama, and Biden for example, I don’t think its reasonable to expect conspiracy theorists will see the military as a very separated entity from the Democratic establishment. Even disregarding this though, I don’t know that the military really has the evidence to make a convincing argument that climate change is real, man-made, and a national security issue. Although I imagine few people would deny that extreme weather is an issue the military has to confront, and even that it may be on an uptick recently, the military has no better chance at making an argument that it is man-made rather than a natural part of a healthy pattern, than any other scientists. And going further past that, I believe that as complicated as world politics and conflicts are, it would be about impossible to demonstrate an airtight correlation between climate and significant increase in violence and immigration to escape it. Plus, as Accidental Superpower, for example, supports, it seems likely the issues the military associates with climate change wouldn’t really seem like national security threats to everyone, as the conflicts it causes don’t typically affect us unless we decide to intervene, and frankly it seems to me that in the American psyche there exists an impression that violent unrest is more or less the natural state of the Middle East.
Perhaps I’m being overly pessimistic, but it seems to me that as much expertise as the author may have regarding the military, his understanding of climate-change-denialism and its causes is somewhat limited.
Source:
Klare, Michael. "A military perspective on climate change could bridge the gap between believers and doubters." The Conversation, The Conversation USA, 18 February 2020, https://theconversation.com/a-military-perspective-on-climate-change-could-bridge-the-gap-between-believers-and-doubters-128609
Frankly I think his argument doesn’t really hold up. For the military to be a convincing voice in the climate change conversation, they need to be trusted by the people they intend to convince as both honest and correct, and I believe they fail both these criteria. For one the article seems to imply that while many climate deniers believe pro-climate-change scientists are paid off or otherwise manipulated by the Democratic elite, the military is, one might say, unshakably Republican. Especially given who some of the most prominent voices in the Democrat party have been in recent years, Clinton, Obama, and Biden for example, I don’t think its reasonable to expect conspiracy theorists will see the military as a very separated entity from the Democratic establishment. Even disregarding this though, I don’t know that the military really has the evidence to make a convincing argument that climate change is real, man-made, and a national security issue. Although I imagine few people would deny that extreme weather is an issue the military has to confront, and even that it may be on an uptick recently, the military has no better chance at making an argument that it is man-made rather than a natural part of a healthy pattern, than any other scientists. And going further past that, I believe that as complicated as world politics and conflicts are, it would be about impossible to demonstrate an airtight correlation between climate and significant increase in violence and immigration to escape it. Plus, as Accidental Superpower, for example, supports, it seems likely the issues the military associates with climate change wouldn’t really seem like national security threats to everyone, as the conflicts it causes don’t typically affect us unless we decide to intervene, and frankly it seems to me that in the American psyche there exists an impression that violent unrest is more or less the natural state of the Middle East.
Perhaps I’m being overly pessimistic, but it seems to me that as much expertise as the author may have regarding the military, his understanding of climate-change-denialism and its causes is somewhat limited.
Source:
Klare, Michael. "A military perspective on climate change could bridge the gap between believers and doubters." The Conversation, The Conversation USA, 18 February 2020, https://theconversation.com/a-military-perspective-on-climate-change-could-bridge-the-gap-between-believers-and-doubters-128609
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