UCF summit: Climate change threatens world’s security
By Andrea Canterbury
Rising sea levels and changing temperatures could cause disastrous threats to the U.S. and world’s security, warned a panel of experts at a global issues conference at the University of Central Florida on Thursday.
Ongoing climate change could result in millions of displaced people and dangerous food shortages that could in turn spark violence, terrorism and new conflicts around the world that the American military would be called upon to counter, members of the panel predicted.
Five national experts debated and discussed the effects of climate change on global, national and human security. The UCF Global Perspectives Office hosted the event in the Pegasus Ballroom, along with the National Conference of Editorial Writers and the Global Connections Foundation. This year, the Global Perspectives Office is focusing on “The Environment, Energy and National/Global Security” as a theme.
Retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, president of the Washington-based American Security Project, delivered the morning keynote speech where he said Americans need to act today for tomorrow.
“If we respond to the new climate change aggressively, if we take on the challenge expecting to bring about an energy and climate revolution, we can change the world,” Gunn said.
According to Gunn, climate change is affecting national security. As the ice melts and waters rise, new battle spaces will be defined, altering our political and military alliances, he said.
This means that the United States will be called upon to aid more populations that are threatened by natural disasters and loss of land due to soil erosion. Our troops and resources will be strained as we provide more relief, fight more wars and support more governments, he said.
Melting permafrost has large implications for military mobility, and rising sea levels will force mass migrations of displaced populations creating “climate refugees.”
Gunn told the large audience of several hundred activists, students and professionals that the threats from climate change are unlike any he has ever faced.
“By 2050, the International Organization for Migration projects there will be 200 million climate refugees,” Gunn said.
Rather than leaving the mess for future generations, Gunn said people making decisions now should be the ones to start working to reverse the change – and pay for it.
“Climate change is going to cost us,” Gunn said. “It should cost us and not future generations.”
While climate change has its effect on global security, one speaker focused on human security — how we live and how we eat.
According to Janet Larsen, director of research at the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, crop yields fall by 10 percent with each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature. Falling crop yields mean there are 1 billion more hungry people across the globe.
On top of that, 79 million more mouths are coming to the dinner table each year, Larsen said.
U.S. corn crops are being diverted into production of ethanol, an oil alternative. However, if the entire U.S. corn crop was used for ethanol, only 18 percent of consumer fuel demand would be met, Larsen said.
As of result of their research, Larsen and her colleagues at the Earth Policy Institute have developed what they call “Plan B.” The plan consists of stabilizing population and climate while restoring the ecosystem and eradicating poverty. In order to do this, Plan B calls for cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020 and issuing carbon taxes on fossil fuel use.
Plan B encourages the use of alternative energy resources such as solar and wind energy, something in which China and other countries are heavily investing.
“We can cover up our rooftops; no roof left behind,” Larsen said. “Every roof should have solar panels, solar water heaters or a green roof so that you’re growing food or plants to help with water runoff problems.”
But in order to study climate change and its widespread effects, scientists will rely on NASA and America’s other space programs that require something that may soon go missing: funding.
“NASA commitments to climate change-related activity may well be contingent on funding dependent on what the Obama administration decides to do consequent to the report of the Augustine commission,” said Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the National Security Decision Making Department at the U.S. Naval War College.
NASA works with polar satellites to study global climate change. If funding is cut, we may not have the necessary resources to study drastic climate changes and trends, Johnson-Freese said.
“Think Globally, Act Locally” is now “Think Locally, Act Globally,” said William Powers, senior fellow with the World Policy Institute in New York City and the afternoon keynote speaker.
This message is just what high school student Ali Veech is bringing home.
Veech, 17, and a senior at Dr. Phillips High School, came to the summit as part of her Valencia Community College class. Veech’s family owns orange groves that are being affected by global pollution and overdevelopment.
Veech said oranges in her family’s groves have been decreasing in both number and quality. She said she hopes to teach her family what she learned from the summit in order to cut costs and their carbon footprint.
“Then we can actually find a way to decrease our emissions and not use as much money, as much carbon fuels – everything that is really hurting our greenhouse now,” Veech said.
Young people like Veech are the ones we should be thinking about as we make decisions now about confronting climate change, Gunn said.
“We stand at a unique moment,” Gunn said. “I think we all understand the costs and the risk of doing nothing. Most of us can see the opportunities glimmering in the not too distant future.
“The only issue is whether, like our ancestors setting out for the frontier, we have the courage.”
The one self-described “naysayer” of the panel was James Carafano, an expert in defense and homeland security at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. He said he disagrees with taking immediate action until we understand more about the complex processes involved with climate change. By taking quick, wrong-headed action the American government could make the problem worse, he said.
Carafano, a historian, said that the idea of looking forward and accurately predicting the effects of climate change is unrealistic. The issues of climate change and environmental impact are not new, he said. When you look at the declining levels of global political violence, things have been getting better instead of worse, he said.
Andrea Canterbury is a UCF journalism student.
