To the Editor:

It has been argued for years by the Pentagon that the implications of global warming for national security are profound.  The recent Department of Defense report on this topic (http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/) confirms that this is a continuing concern of the defense establishment.

Our entire war machine — land, air, and sea — runs on fossil fuel products as fuel and as parts.  In a recent report, the CNA [a not-for-profit research organization that operates the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Public Research] Military Advisory Board concluded:

“Projected climate change is a complex multi-decade challenge. Without action to build resilience, it will increase security risks over much of the planet. It will not only increase threats to developing nations in resource-challenged parts of the world, but it will also test the security of nations with robust capability, including significant elements of our National Power here at home. Even though we may not have 100 percent certainty as to the cause or even the exact magnitude of the impacts, the risks associated with projected climate change warrant taking action today to plan and prepare for changes in our communities, at home and abroad. (http://www.cna.org/)”

The fact of global warming has been part of our understanding of the planet's climate for many years.  Opinion polls typically reveal that attitudes about climate change tend to divide neatly along political party affiliation (among voters as well as among politicians). 

Here is what we know, essentially beyond any reasonable doubt (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014):

— 1.  Warming of the climate is unequivocal, and, since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.  The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.

— 2.  Human greenhouse gas emissions are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th Century.

— 3.  Continued emission of greenhouse gasses will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.

What will be some of these consequences, if we simply proceed with “business as usual?”

— 1. Much of far southern Florida could be periodically flooded or underwater, and The Villages will be somewhat closer to the ocean than they are now.  On a more pessimistic note, sea level rise could swamp most United States East Coast cities, and the meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet would be sufficient to submerge London. 

— 2.  Within the current century, projections suggest that the following amounts of major U.S. cities will be flooded:  Cambridge, 26 percent; Charleston, 19 percent; Miami Beach, 94 percent; Galveston, 68 percent; Miami, 20 percent; St. Petersburg, 32 percent; Tampa, 18 percent; Virginia Beach, 21 percent; Atlantic City, 62 percent.  At 88 percent flooded, New Orleans will probably just have to be abandoned. (“The New York Times,” Nov. 24, 2012) Many island nations will simply disappear, and millions of people on river deltas will become environmental refugees, with perhaps as many as 50 million people on the move to higher ground in Bangladesh alone. (“The New York Times,” March 28, 2014)

— 3.  In contrast to too much water, in other parts of the U.S., there will be too little.  A recent study indicates that, within this century, there will likely be a mega-drought in the western and southwestern U.S., lasting for as long as perhaps 35 years. (www.msn.com)

— 4. What else can we expect?  Oceans will continue to warm and global mean sea level will continue to rise during this century. It is very likely that the Arctic seal ice will continue to shrink, if not disappear completely.  Global glacier volume will further decrease, causing severe shortages of freshwater.  By the time our grandchildren want to visit Glacier National Park, they will need an explanation of why it's named that.

What about the XL Pipeline?  The reason not to build it really has little to do with the chance of accidents and spills.  The reason not to build it is that it encourages, even enables, the fossil fuel industries' mantra of “burn it all.”  This means drilling, digging, mining, and scraping in increasingly dangerous ways and places.

Prime examples of these unconventional methods to find and retrieve that very last particle of fossil fuels are mountain-top removal for coal and tar sands mining for oil.  It is the latter that is supposed to flow through the XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast.

What is not so well known about the Alberta tar sands is just how much energy is required in the mining process.  Tar-sands oil will not flow through a pipeline unless it is treated ("upgraded") with either natural gas condensate or light oil.

Each barrel of tar sands oil requires the consumption of three barrels of freshwater.  To mine or steam out this tar, the industry burns through enough natural gas every day to heat six million homes.  Does this really make sense? (Andrew Nikiforuk, “Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent,” Greystone, 2010). 

The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] recommends that, to avoid complete climate chaos and the breakdown of organized society as we know it (and to avoid a runaway global warming event powered by positive feedbacks unleashed by the warming that has already occurred or is occurring), we should try to stabilize the mean global temperature increase at 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Alternatively, many have proposed that we cap the quantity of atmospheric CO2 at 350 parts per million; we are at about 400 ppm now.  To meet either goal would require drastic reductions of global carbon dioxide emissions over the next few decades.  (Robert Henson, “The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change,” American Meteorological Society, 2014)

The kicker is that, in order to have any chance at all of meeting either of these goals, a recent study published in “Nature” argues that we must leave about a third of oil reserves, a half of gas reserves, and more than 80 percent of current coal reserves in the ground until at least mid-century.  The business-as-usual scenario, which is to exploit rapidly and completely fossil fuels wherever they may be found, is inconsistent with a commitment to the 2°C goal.  (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7533/full/nature14016.html)

If you're not worried yet, you should be.  If your descendants could summon you in a séance, the first question they would ask is: "You knew what was happening. Why didn't you do something about it?"

Write to your Congressmen.  Urge them to take this issue very, very seriously, or you will remember that they did not the next time you vote.

T. McFadden

Guilderland