MotherJones/Dan Spinelli: The Pentagon Isn't Prepared to Battle Climate Change, a New Report Says

MotherJones                                                                                                               
 Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit so we can go after stories that others don't: like sending Shane Bauer to Syria to understand what America is doing there. Read why and how we did it, and please support journalism like this with a donation today.

 Environment

June 12, 2019
A New Report Says the Pentagon Isn’t Prepared to Battle Climate Change
The GAO accused the military of not sufficiently assessing the risks of rising seas, droughts, and wildfires.

    Dan Spinelli
   
    Reporter Bio

Debris litters Tyndall Air Force Base following Hurricane Michael in October 2018.Scott Olson/Getty

Inside the Department of Defense, climate change is settled science. At least six times in the last two years, senior military leaders have acknowledged as much to lawmakers during oversight hearings. Nonetheless, the Pentagon continues to botch its stated plans to fortify military bases and infrastructure against the looming threat of rising sea levels, drought, wildfires, and other climate-related threats, a report from the independent Government Accountability Office concluded this week.

The report, which was published on Wednesday, found that most installations visited by auditors “did not fully assess the risks associated with extreme weather and climate change effects.” Many of these bases did not substantially incorporate climate projections into their planning, including ones in areas at increased risk for flooding like Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. The report only found one project, across the 23 Army, Navy, and Air Force bases reviewed in total, that was designed according to projections of some climate change-related threat.

Climate change has become an increasingly visible concern for the Pentagon over the past year of extreme weather. Camp Lejeune, the largest Marine Corp base on the East Coast, and Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida were each devastated by hurricanes. Congress awarded both bases nearly $3 billion in disaster aid last week, but another hurricane season looms without a serious reckoning from the Pentagon as to how to cope with the menace from the storms.

The disconnect between acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and congressional Democrats, who have repeatedly emphasized this issue in hearings, became obvious in January when the Pentagon neglected to list the installations most vulnerable to climate change, as mandated by Congress. When they submitted a revised report in March, they did not include Tyndall and Camp Lejeune. Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), a House Armed Services Committee member, compared the Pentagon’s effort at the time to “a student rushing to finish a term paper” in a statement to Mother Jones. “Given this record, the assurances from the Secretary that he cares about resiliency ring hollow,” he said.

Under President Barack Obama, the Pentagon published a climate change roadmap and issued a department-wide directive to incorporate climate change risks into future planning and construction efforts. Those efforts have continued under President Donald Trump but are no longer a priority and, according to some former officials, even a liability given the commander in chief’s skepticism of global warming. “Tying things to climate change could invite a scrutiny that was undesired,” retired Rear Adm. Jonathan White, who led a Navy task force on climate change, told Mother Jones in December.

In other instances, White House officials have censored government employees from linking climate change to national security. Last week, a State Department intelligence agency was blocked from submitting prepared testimony to a House Intelligence Committee hearing on climate change. White House officials marked up the unreleased text, which was based on research from federal science agencies, with comments objecting to its “climate alarm propaganda.” That revelation followed similar stories of Trump administration officials blocking the release of a collective statement at last month’s Arctic Council meeting, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended, over opposition to climate change references in it.

Unless the Pentagon gains some urgency, the drumbeat of criticism from independent watchdogs like GAO will keep coming. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has used her perch on the Senate Armed Services panel to hammer the Pentagon’s efforts to adapt to climate change, has already asked GAO to investigate “the impacts of climate change on defense contractors and the defense supply chain.”

Until then, read GAO’s report from this week here:

More MotherJones reporting on Climate Desk
DOES IT FEEL LIKE POLITICS IS AT A BREAKING POINT?
Headshot of Editor in Chief of Mother Jones, Clara Jeffery

It sure feels that way to me, and here at Mother Jones, we’ve been thinking a lot about what journalism needs to do differently, and how we can have the biggest impact.

We kept coming back to one word: corruption. Democracy and the rule of law being undermined by those with wealth and power for their own gain. So we're launching an ambitious Mother Jones Corruption Project to do deep, time-intensive reporting on systemic corruption, and asking the MoJo community to help crowdfund it.

We aim to hire, build a team, and give them the time and space needed to understand how we got here and how we might get out. We want to dig into the forces and decisions that have allowed massive conflicts of interest, influence peddling, and win-at-all-costs politics to flourish.

It's unlike anything we've done, and we have seed funding to get started, but we're looking to raise $500,000 from readers by July when we'll be making key budgeting decisions—and the more resources we have by then, the deeper we can dig. If our plan sounds good to you, please help kickstart it with a tax-deductible donation today.

Thanks for reading—whether or not you can pitch in today, or ever, I'm glad you're with us.
Signed by Clara Jeffery

Clara Jeffery, Editor-in-Chief

    More about:Climate ChangeClimate DeskEnergyScience

Related

    Elizabeth Warren Raises the Pressure on the Military to Take Climate Change Seriously

    Dan Spinelli
    House Democrats Just Told the Pentagon to Redo Its Climate Change Report

    Dan Spinelli
    The Pentagon’s New Climate Change Report Is Missing Some Important Details

    Dan Spinelli
    This Year’s Extreme Weather Showed That the Pentagon Is Not Ready for Climate Change

    Dan Spinelli

We Recommend

    Israel’s Prime Minister Just Renamed a Controversial Settlement After Donald Trump

    Bryan Schatz
    Trump Campaign Purges Pollsters After Devastating Internal Polling Is Leaked

    Bryan Schatz
    Trump Just Said He Wants a Poll on the “Dishonest” News Media. Polls Show People Trust Him Less.

    Bryan Schatz
    Donald Trump Just Found Another Infuriating Way to Undermine Science

    Jackie Flynn Mogensen

Latest

    California Is Considering Ending Criminal Court Fees and Wiping Out Billions in Debt

    Jacob Rosenberg
    A Scientist Took Climate Change Deniers to Court and Wrested an Apology From Them

    Emma McIntosh
    Meghan McCain Asked Twitter for Father’s Day Dad Stories. Thousands of People Replied.

    Jackie Flynn Mogensen
    Remember When Trump Waved a Paper at Reporters and Said It Was a Secret Deal with Mexico? Here It Is.

    Jackie Flynn Mogensen

Share your feedback: We’re planning to launch a new version of the comments section. Help us test it.
view comments
Independent. In print. In your mailbox.

Inexpensive, too! Subscribe today and get a full year of Mother Jones for just $12.
Mother Jones Magazine Cover : May + June 2019 June 2019
Mother Jones Magazine Cover : March + April 2019 April 2019
Mother Jones Magazine Cover : January + February 2019 February 2019
podcast
Smart. Fearless. Audio.

It's us but for your ears. Listen on Apple Podcasts.
Subscribe »
Looking for news you can trust?

Subscribe to our free newsletters.

    About
    Our Staff
    Financials
    Jobs
    Events
    Contact Us

    Support
    Ways to Give
    Advertise With Us
    Store

    Subscribe
    Magazine Subscriptions
    Give a Gift Subscription
    Email Newsletters
    Podcasts
    Customer Service

Copyright © 2019 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. All Rights Reserved.

    Terms of Service Privacy Policy

Powered by WordPress.com VIP