As the hot news of the potential use by ISIS of a chemical warfare agent against our troops in Iraq continue to stream out, our military personnel will take cold comfort in latest order inked from their Commander-in-Chief’s mighty pen.
President Obama has just issued a new policy directive demanding that national major security agencies and the military consider climate change when developing policies, plans, strategies, and programs.
Today, President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum on Climate Change and National Security, establishing a policy that the impacts of climate change must be considered in the development of national security-related doctrine, policies, and plans,” the White House said. “To achieve this, 20 federal agencies and offices with climate science, intelligence analysis, and national security policy development missions and responsibilities will collaborate to ensure the best information on climate impacts is available to strengthen our national security.”White House special assistant to the president, Alice Hill, told reporters that the presidential memo will “prioritize climate threats” to identify the most significant risks to the nation’s security and drive full consideration of climate change effects into national security plans and policies.
What are the likely impacts of this memorandum? It depends on who gets elected in November.
The eight-page presidential memorandum carries the same force of law within the federal government as an executive order, and its policies will carry over into the next administration unless explicitly rescinded by the next president.In fact, the first agency implementation reports required under Obama’s order aren’t due until February — the month after Obama leaves office. It also sets up a panel, headed by the president’s national security adviser and chief science adviser, to catalog data on climate change and its effects — and giving intelligence agencies more of a role in analyzing climate data.
Therefore, a slate of new advisers for military planning, national security, and science could neutralize this policy quickly.
For example, while Obama’s military leadership is steaming ahead with plans for a Climate Security Consensus Project and asserts that the root cause of the crisis in Syria is drought, GOP contender Donald Trump asserts climate change is a “hoax”.
The party’s national platform said that current national policies to address climate change are “extreme” and defy “common sense.” To that end, the House Republicans recently took a symbolic vote to reject any attempts to penalize companies for their excessive carbon emissions, saying that it would only raise the cost of electricity.
On the other hand, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wants to have the U.S. use 50 percent cleaner energy by 2030 and promised heavy fracking regulations. One can, then, comfortably assume Obama’s climate change priorities will continue to outweigh actual security concerns and sensible military objectives should she be elected.
Disturbingly, Obama proudly noted that he brought up climate change as a serious topic in the Situation Room (hat-tip Tammy Bruce).
I will simply point out that mustard gas can change the climate around our troops dramatically.
Let’s hope there is a change in the political climate soon, before the good men and women who serve this nation are harmed by Obama’s misguided priorities.
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