U.S Treat Global Warming as a Security Threat

And as they do, economic and social changes will be profound enough to become a threat to homeland security. Water - either too little or too much of it - is going to be the major problem for the United States, scientists and military experts said Monday.

Lack of water and food in places already the most volatile will make those regions even more unstable with global warming and "foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,'' states the 63-page military report, issued by the CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Va.-based national security think tank.

At home, especially in the Southwest, regions will need to find new sources of drinking water, the Great Lakes will shrink, fish and other species will be left high and dry, and coastal areas will on occasion be inundated because of sea-level rises and souped-up storms, U.S. scientists said.

"Climate change is a national security issue," retired General. Gordon R. Sullivan, chairman of the Military Advisory Board and former Army chief of staff, said in releasing the report at a Washington news conference. "We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world. People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections," he said. "But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield."

As water fights erupt between nations and regions and especially between cities and agricultural areas, the first step recommended in the study is for the national intelligence community to include comprehensive assessments of climate change in future security plans, just as agencies now take into account traditional but uncertain threats.

The scientists and military leaders held out hope that dramatic cuts in fossil fuel emissions could prevent much of the harm they are predicting. But they said the U.S. Government - and the rest of the world - has to act now.