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Top Story: CNA Institute’s Military Advisory Board Report: Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security.

Two years ago, the CNA Institute (a private military think tank which grew out of the Center for Naval Analysis) published a ground breaking report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change. Then, a group of retired generals and admirals from all branches of the US armed forces met to asses the global security consequences of climate change.

This report stood out because of the Bush Administration’s policy prohibiting US agencies from planning or discussing anthropogenic climate change. It was the first major American admission that climate change is not only real but could result in an overwhelming threat to overall global security.

CNA’s 2007 National Security and the Threat of Climate Change

Now, CNA has published a new study outlining how the military’s own policies and procedures are helping this threat come to life. Major findings:

1. The nation’s current energy posture is a serious and urgent threat to national security.
a. Dependence on oil undermines America’s national security on multiple fronts.
b. The U.S.’s outdated, fragile, and overtaxed national electrical grid is a dangerously weak link in the national security infrastructure.
2. A business as usual approach to energy security poses an unacceptably high threat level from a series of converging risks.
3. Achieving energy security in a carbon-constrained world is possible, but will require concerted leadership and continuous focus.
4. The national security planning processes have not been sufficiently responsive to the security impacts of America’s current energy posture.

The study is available at the link above.

Coverage of the study has not exactly been front page news, but considering the importance of the 2007 report, this is likely to be a game changer for the Pentagon. Couple this with the energy efficiency standards that Gates has already put into place — contractors now must include the price of fueling vehicles in their contracts, which is a huge deal for DoD — and there is the potential here for transformation.

The New York Times focused on that bottom line price tag in its coverage. Reuters went for the sensationalist global threat. Climate Progress sees real potential in military transformation.

NYT: Addressing the Military’s Energy Inefficiency
Reuters: Continuing Current U.S. Energy Policy Called ‘Perilous’
Climate Progress: The Real Patriot Act, pt 1

Meanwhile, Alex Steffens at World Changing links this report to numerous others that have come out in the last week and sees a potential for a coalition here, as movement to fight climate change now seems to be starting to cut across old partisan divisions.

“This all reinforces something I’ve been thinking more and more lately, which is that not only would addressing climate change yield more direct economic benefits than losses, but that the failure to do so will have societal costs orders of magnitude more costly. Given what we’re learning, there is simply no credible position to be found in opposing climate action on economic terms.

“Which is the basis of my problem with the whole debate around the Waxman-Markey bill (which would introduce a very limited cap-and-trade system to the U.S.): that debate is surreal. It bears no relationship to reality. At very least, we need a widespread recognition that the politically possible in D.C. is at odds with what is in the real world scientifically grounded and necessary in practical terms.”

World Changing: Latest to Sound the Climate Alarm: Doctors, Lawyers, Generals, Bankers and Diplomats

Other stories of note:

Guardian: China and US held secret talks on climate change deal
“Chandler said he and Holdren drew up a three-point memo which envisaged: Using existing technologies to produce a 20% cut in carbon emissions by 2010; Co-operating on new technology including carbon capture and storage and fuel efficiency for cars; The US and China signing up to a global climate change deal in Copenhagen. “We sent it to Xie and he said he agreed,” said Bill Chandler, director of the energy and climate programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.”

Climate Progress: Exclusive: Have China and the U.S. been holding secret talks aimed at a climate deal this fall?
“I’ve known Bill since my DOE days, so I called him to get the scoop.  He says the story is mostly true — and thus a true potential breakthrough that may well lead to a major announcement in the fall — but it has inaccuracies, including the nature of the deal being discussed.”

ScienceDaily: Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought
“The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.”

The Australian: Drought and floods cut rice harvest back to 5%
“The rice harvest has been ravaged by both drought and flooding, with the NSW Riverina expected to deliver just 5 per cent of its normal output. About 65,000 tonnes are expected to be harvested this year in the nation’s rice growing heartland – down from 1.2 million tonnes in a typical year – while trial crops in northeast NSW have been destroyed by heavy rainfall.”

Univ. of Washington: Any way you slice it, warming climate is affecting Cascades snowpack
“There has been sharp disagreement in recent years about how much, or even whether, winter snowpack has declined in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon during the last half-century. But new research leaves little doubt that a warmer climate has a significant effect on the snowpack, as measured by water content on April 1, even if other factors keep year-to-year measurements close to normal for a period of years.”

Foreign Policy in Focus: Cities Can Save the Earth
“The climate crisis won’t be solved by changing light bulbs and inflating your tires more, planting a tree and driving a little less. It’s going to require a truly fundamental shift in how we build our cities and live in them.”

NYT: As Alaska Glaciers Melt, It’s Land That’s Rising
“As a result, the region faces unusual environmental challenges. As the sea level falls relative to the land, water tables fall, too, and streams and wetlands dry out. Land is emerging from the water to replace the lost wetlands, shifting property boundaries and causing people to argue about who owns the acreage and how it should be used. And meltwater carries the sediment scoured long ago by the glaciers to the coast, where it clouds the water and silts up once-navigable channels.”