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Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change

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Could Global Climate do more than create environmental chaos? "Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change" looks at the other implications that a shifting climate could visit upon a world. Pondering scenarios ranging from likely to full on possible doomsday-level scenarios, they are all explained on what they mean for the world, how they can be averted, and how they can be dealt with if it's too late to avert it. "Climatic Cataclysm" is an enlightening look at how nature can wreak havoc on politics.

Although published by the Brookings Institution, this book is derived from a November 2007 study conducted through a partnership between the Center for Strategic & International Studies and the Center for a New American Security. Titled "The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change," that study was authored by a team of experts in climate science, defense, intelligence, and foreign policy who expanded their report into this excellent book. Even if you've read the original report, get this book because it substantially adds to the information and analysis.
There have been many reports in recent years on the national security implications of climate change. This is among the best. Some recognizable names among the 12 authors are James Woolsey, former director of the CIA; Leon Fuerth, former national security advisor to Vice President Al Gore; and John Podesta, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton. The other authors are also heavy hitters in their fields.
The authors created three increasingly grave scenarios: "expected" and "serious" over the next 30 years, and "catastrophic" over the next 100 years. These are quite frightening, particularly the latter two, and should not be read to small children. But this grave tone is appropriate for a report designed to warn of the urgency of the situation and present some serious thinking about its implications. The major implications are laid out in the final chapter for policy-makers, business leaders, and the rest of us to consider. A must-read for anyone who cares about what could happen in the rest of this century.

Given Brookings support for Bush's Middle East 'campaign' I typically would not turn to this centrist think-tank for policy direction on climate change, but I can bend with the warming winds on this issue, especially since these analysts got it right. I agree with the political implications discussed in this book: the political fighting in the U.S. has to cease so that alternative energy options are implemented ASAP. That is, as soon as (our next) President Obama takes office. Why ASAP?

Three future climate scenarios are laid out, each with successive implications for the very functioning of American society. The third scenario, or catastrophic tipping point, is predicated on man-made atmospheric carbon essentially creating a new and vastly foreign climate regime. This is consistent with the latest scientitific research on anthropogenic global warming.

Brookings analysts argue that this third scenario holds the greatest danger in around 50-100 years for both the natural world and human civilization as humanity faces forced migration, diseases, and the increased possibilities of nuclear war as a variety of national security threats dramatically heighten.

Skip the summer sci-fi reading and take this one on...since it reads like a dystopia anyway.