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This week, we’re dealing with uncertainty. How will the Trump administration’s national security strategy, which doesn’t mention global warming, influence military planning for a changing world? How can city planners prepare for rising seas when we don’t know how quickly those seas will rise? How much of a lasting imprint will oil drilling leave in the Arctic wildlife refuge?
If all of that is worrisome, not to fear. You’re certain to like next week’s newsletter, when we’lllook back at some of our biggest climate coverage of 2017.
Trump isn’t planning for climate change. The military still is.
This week, national security experts and environmental activists lamented that President Trump’s new national security strategy does not identify climate change as a threat.
It’s a stark reversal from President Barack Obama’s strategy in 2015, which stated that rising global temperatures were an “urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water.”
The contrast prompted me to look back to a report that came out a decade ago, when I first started on the climate beat. The 2007 report, titled “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” was from the CNA Military Advisory Board, a panel composed of retired generals and admirals, and it was seen as groundbreaking at the time.
Citing the threats of refugee crises from drought-stricken African nations to dramatically reduced water supplies in much of Asia if the Himalayan ice sheet continues to melt, the advisory board’s report concluded that climate change posed a stark threat to national security in the United States and should be elevated to the highest levels of military preparedness.
“Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states,” the report said.
Recently, I spoke with Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, a retired Army chief of staff who worked on the report and helped coin the term “threat-multiplier” to describe the ways that climate change can exacerbate other problems. His take on the 10-year-old study: It all holds up today.
“It’s playing out. It’s played out almost exactly as we said it, and it’s troublesome,” he said. “If we don’t pay attention to it now, when?”
So how much will President Trump’s national security strategy undercut military plans to address climate change? Sherri Goodman, who served as the first deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security and founded the CNA Military Advisory Board, said she worried about the administration’s message. But, she said, 10 years after the advisory board’s report, the need to address climate change is increasingly baked into the thinking of military leaders.
“The national security community is clear-eyed about the threats even if there are aspects of the administration that ignore it,” she said.
Follow Lisa on Twitter: @LFFriedman
Oceans are rising. We wish we knew how quickly.
One of the most important effects of global warming this century will be sea-level rise. As theice sheets atop Greenland and Antarctica melt, ocean levels will creep upward, flooding coastal cities around the world.
But there’s a maddening complication: No one’s exactly sure how high oceans will rise. Scientists may not be able to settle on a precise answer for decades to come, making the jobs of coastal planners that much harder.
That’s the upshot of a new study in the journal Earth’s Future, which estimates that if humanity zeros out its emissions by midcentury, sea levels will most likely rise 1 foot to 3 feet by 2100. But if emissions keep rising unchecked, we’re staring at 4 to 7 feet.
That may sound like a small range, but if you’re a city trying to figure out where to build along the coast or what infrastructure to protect, the difference of even a few feet can be critical.
Consider the Florida Keys, where sea-level rise is already helping to flood roadways. Rhonda Haag, the sustainability director for Monroe County, Fla., which covers most of the Keys, notes that current forecasts call for 9 to 24 inches of sea-level rise locally by 2060. If it’s only nine inches, the county could adapt by elevating roads and homes. “But if it’s 24,” she told me, “that’s much more difficult.”
Why so much uncertainty? As Robert E. Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers who led the new study explains, scientists are still grappling with the complex physical processes that might cause the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica to crumble.
That means, Dr. Kopp says, coastal cities will have to master the art of “flexible adaptation.” If a city is building a sea wall or surge barrier, it might want to make the base big enough so that it can grow over time as forecasts evolve. And governments may need to rethink flood insurance or zoning policies so people stop building in areas that could soon be underwater.
Follow Brad on Twitter: @bradplumer
A scar in the Arctic refuge, 30 years later
Now that Congress has approved a tax plan that will allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, attention will turn to what impact oil company operations might have on the vast wilderness area in northeastern Alaska.
An exploratory well that was drilled in the mid-1980s offers some clues. Known as KIC-1, it was drilled on private lands in the refuge, not far from the native village of Kaktovik and close to the Beaufort Sea. So far, it is the only well ever drilled in the refuge.
The companies that operated the well, including Chevron and BP, took care to protect the delicate tundra, a flat landscape of mosses, sedges and shrubs that lies over permanently frozen ground. But as this photo shows, even three decades after the well was plugged and abandoned and the drilling equipment removed, there’s still a scar on the tundra.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, has kept an extensive file on the well over the years. We obtained some information and images that show the damage; you can read the full article and see more pictures here.
Follow Henry on Twitter: @henryfountain
What we’re reading
•Virtually every scenario for staying below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming relies on a technology — carbon removal — that barely exists. Read this Wired piece by Abby Rabinowitz and Amanda Simson about the world’s “dirty secret.”
•Scientists warn that Europe could make global warming worse by burning wood to meet its renewable energy targets. See John Upton’s in-depth series in Climate Central for more on this problem.
•Here’s a rundown of what needs to happen before electric cars take over the world, by The Times’s Jack Ewing.
•“If I calculate my own carbon footprint, that’s depressing. If I calculate Batman’s carbon footprint, that’s hilarious. So let’s go with the hilarious.”
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