Spy agencies to assess global warming's ripple effects

[sabra]

Source: LA Times

The review will study how already volatile areas might fare as the climate changes.

WASHINGTON — Stepping into the rancorous national debate over global warming, the U.S. intelligence community has launched an examination of the security threats that could be triggered by rising temperatures, officials said Thursday.

The review was announced by the nation's intelligence director as congressional Democrats and Republicans sparred over whether it was appropriate for the beleaguered U.S. spy services to spend resources studying threats posed by the environment.

The review is expected to identify security problems that could erupt if rising global temperatures cause flooding, food shortages, migration shifts and other disruptions in already volatile parts of the world. Republicans warned it could divert spy agencies' attention from terrorism and other targets.

"It's going to take resources from other places," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. The panel voted Wednesday to require the intelligence community to produce a comprehensive report on security threats caused by climate change.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel4may04,1,3908408.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[Tesha]

1. The Pentagon's toast; how high above sea level are Langley and Fort Meade? (NT)

[jmowreader]

3. Fort Meade is 235 feet above sea level

[Tesha]

5. Answering my own question...

Answering my own question, I think I spotted the CIA headquarters
on Google Earth; that gives the elevation at the buildings as
65 metres (~210 feet). But it tapers down in the backyard to
the Potomac at just 10 metres (33 feet).

Tesha

[struggle4progress]

2. Conclusions: in view of global warming, we need to tap more phones, torture more prisoners, and

bomb Iran. Supporting documents have, unfortunately, been deleted by accident from the RNC servers but you couldn't have seen them anyway, because they were classified before being lost.

[lovuian]

4. Retired US Generals on Global Warming and Security

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNMkyvNGKrc

We pay now or we pay later but we end up paying

[bgmark2]

6. water

yes that running out of water will certainatly be a problem, won't when all these polar ice caps melt there be more water though

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. It's Global Heating. "Warming" understates the problem. Frame the issue!

It's Global Heating. "Warming" understates the problem. Frame the issue!

Time to do some framing of our own. Enough with the Frank Luntz framing of "climate change", and "global warming" is not a strong enough identification of the real challenge.

It is Global Heating, folks.

Only winters are going to seem warm. Summers are going to be hot, hot, hot.