Mr./Madam President, I rise today for the 160th time to again ask this chamber to wake up to the mounting evidence of climate change.
In the coming decades demand for food, water, and energy will grow by approximately 35, 40, and 50 percent around the globe. Climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources. The severity of existing weather patterns will intensify, with wet areas getting wetter and dry and arid areas becoming more so. This extreme weather will cause water and soil stress, and increase food insecurity.
Our oceans will become more acidic. Glaciers will melt and sea-levels will rise. Farms and fisheries will fail, leaving people impoverished and dislocated. Scarce resources will lead to conflicts and confrontations. Traditional lands and livelihoods will be lost. Storms and fires will make suffering acute. Increased travel and poor health infrastructure will make infectious diseases harder to manage. And people who are hungry, or dislocated, or torn from their roots will become desperate, and could become radicalized and violent. The changes to our planet will change living patterns for millions and disrupt entire societies. That’s not just some dystopian vision of the future from a Hollywood movie. …show more content…
It’s what is happening today. The conflict in Syria was exacerbated by drought and the accompanying move of a large population into urban centers. The hundreds of thousands killed and the millions of refugees in Europe are a reminder of the damage climate change can cause. In Nigeria, the government is trying to contain three armed conflicts caused in part by climate change and access to water and grazing land. A fight between farmers and herders over wells was a part of the conflict in Sudan that led to the genocide in Darfur. And the dangerous effects of climate change aren’t just being felt a world away. On our southern border, we’ve seen thousands of women and children from Central America arrive in recent years, fleeing drought and gangs, just trying to survive. A study by the Congressionally-funded US Institute for Peace put it succinctly: "...poor responses to climatic shifts create shortages of resources such as land and water. Shortages are followed by negative secondary impacts, such as more sickness, hunger, and joblessness. Poor responses to these, in turn, open the door to conflict." And while this chamber continues to debate if climate change is real, and if its real, is there anything we can do about it, our defense and intelligence leaders are waiting. They have warning and planning for years, for the threats posed to our national security and international stability by climate change. Since 1997, every four years, the smartest members of our intelligence, military, diplomatic and academic communities have come together under the guidance of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) to produce an unclassified strategic assessment of how key trends and uncertainties might shape the world over the next 20 years. The report is timed to help incoming presidential administrations think and plan for the longer term. The most recent effort of this group was released in January of this year. To write the report they spent two years conducting research, meeting with experts inside and out of government. They visited more than 35 countries around the world. They got feedback from 2,500 people on their ideas, theories and predictions. And after all of that work, the best and the brightest of our national security professionals concluded, “Climate change, environment, and health issues will demand attention.” But the idea that climate change poses a national security threat to the United States isn’t new. In …show more content…
This year, I once again had the pleasure of serving as the Democratic lead for the congressional delegation led by Senator McCain to the Munich security conference. Every time I go to Munich, I appear on a panel to about the global challenges of climate change. The first year, my panel was in the hotel across the street. Then we were moved to the main hotel, but up in the attic. And then this year, we were on the main-stage, in prime time with three current or former heads of state. Our allies are around the world are taking the threat of climate change more and more seriously. The one place that isn’t, is here, in the U.S.
In the coming decades demand for food, water, and energy will grow by approximately 35, 40, and 50 percent around the globe. Climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources. The severity of existing weather patterns will intensify, with wet areas getting wetter and dry and arid areas becoming more so. This extreme weather will cause water and soil stress, and increase food insecurity.
Our oceans will become more acidic. Glaciers will melt and sea-levels will rise. Farms and fisheries will fail, leaving people impoverished and dislocated. Scarce resources will lead to conflicts and confrontations. Traditional lands and livelihoods will be lost. Storms and fires will make suffering acute. Increased travel and poor health infrastructure will make infectious diseases harder to manage. And people who are hungry, or dislocated, or torn from their roots will become desperate, and could become radicalized and violent. The changes to our planet will change living patterns for millions and disrupt entire societies. That’s not just some dystopian vision of the future from a Hollywood movie. …show more content…
It’s what is happening today. The conflict in Syria was exacerbated by drought and the accompanying move of a large population into urban centers. The hundreds of thousands killed and the millions of refugees in Europe are a reminder of the damage climate change can cause. In Nigeria, the government is trying to contain three armed conflicts caused in part by climate change and access to water and grazing land. A fight between farmers and herders over wells was a part of the conflict in Sudan that led to the genocide in Darfur. And the dangerous effects of climate change aren’t just being felt a world away. On our southern border, we’ve seen thousands of women and children from Central America arrive in recent years, fleeing drought and gangs, just trying to survive. A study by the Congressionally-funded US Institute for Peace put it succinctly: "...poor responses to climatic shifts create shortages of resources such as land and water. Shortages are followed by negative secondary impacts, such as more sickness, hunger, and joblessness. Poor responses to these, in turn, open the door to conflict." And while this chamber continues to debate if climate change is real, and if its real, is there anything we can do about it, our defense and intelligence leaders are waiting. They have warning and planning for years, for the threats posed to our national security and international stability by climate change. Since 1997, every four years, the smartest members of our intelligence, military, diplomatic and academic communities have come together under the guidance of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) to produce an unclassified strategic assessment of how key trends and uncertainties might shape the world over the next 20 years. The report is timed to help incoming presidential administrations think and plan for the longer term. The most recent effort of this group was released in January of this year. To write the report they spent two years conducting research, meeting with experts inside and out of government. They visited more than 35 countries around the world. They got feedback from 2,500 people on their ideas, theories and predictions. And after all of that work, the best and the brightest of our national security professionals concluded, “Climate change, environment, and health issues will demand attention.” But the idea that climate change poses a national security threat to the United States isn’t new. In …show more content…
This year, I once again had the pleasure of serving as the Democratic lead for the congressional delegation led by Senator McCain to the Munich security conference. Every time I go to Munich, I appear on a panel to about the global challenges of climate change. The first year, my panel was in the hotel across the street. Then we were moved to the main hotel, but up in the attic. And then this year, we were on the main-stage, in prime time with three current or former heads of state. Our allies are around the world are taking the threat of climate change more and more seriously. The one place that isn’t, is here, in the U.S.