All language subtitles for The.Age.Of.Consequences.2016.1080p.WEBRip.DD5.1.x264

Nuclear war could quite possibly

finish off
civilization altogether.

Climate change
left to run its own course

could also finish us off.

The existential issue

is whether we can foresee
what needs to be done

and get it done
in time to matter.

We are always in a race

between what our intelligence
can do for us

and what our intelligence
does to us.

Drought and food shortage...

A just-released report
from the Pentagon...

climate change and the challenges
it's creating for the military.

The latest report says
global warming

is driving weather
to new levels of extremes.

A growing threat
to national security.

The predicted consequences
of a warming world

are already with us.

Climate change
and natural disasters

can cause humanitarian crises,
population migrations.

Scarcity of water, food,
and space

could lead to failed states,
instability,

and potentially radicalization.

Senator, there's no question
that environmental security

can have a dramatic affect
on overall security

both in individual states
and regionally.

Never before have so many people
fled war and persecution.

This is climate change
far beyond the melting ice caps.

Global climate change,
while not new to history,

is new to the modern world.

It can significantly
add to the challenges

of global instability:

Hunger, poverty, and conflict.

The effects of climate change

are far-reaching
and unpredictable,

demanding our attention
and strategic thinking.

The U.S. department of defense

is preparing to adapt to these
21st century challenges.

The intersection
of climate change

and the security of nations

will become a defining reality
in the years ahead.

We cannot ignore the costs
of inaction

and we cannot leave these
massive security concerns

to the next generation.

We are now in the age
of consequences.

Think about it from
a military perspective.

When I was leading
paratroopers in Afghanistan,

if 98, 99% of my intelligence

told me that I was driving
my platoon down a road

and that two miles
down that road

there's an ambush
waiting for me.

I don't get to say,
"yeah, but there's that 1%"

that says
that there's no ambush,

so to hell with the other 99%.

"We're gonna
keep going down the road."

I mean, that's negligence
on an unfathomable scale.

That's the debate
we're having right now

with regard to climate.

The overwhelming consensus

is we are facing a massive risk.

Climate change is happening.

We've got to decide whether
we're going to act on it or not.

And that choice
has consequences.

Climate change impacts
the basic resources

that are necessary
for humans to survive

and for nations to continue.

As we see our resources
stressed significantly,

we're gonna see some
unprecedented changes

that we have to prepare for.

The risks of climate change

impact on every facet of life.

They impact on every facet
of national security

and of international security.

That makes instability.

That makes conflict
much more likely.

The first time I thought about
climate change and violence

was in Afghanistan
while researching opium Poppy

from which heroin is made.

Every time
I interviewed farmers,

they said, "part of why
we grow this crop"

is because
it's drought-resistant."

Turns out Afghanistan

is going through the worst
drought in living memory,

and Poppy uses one fifth
the amount of water

that wheat uses.

The Karzai government
were eradicating Poppy.

The Taliban, on the other hand,

said to the farmers,

"we will defend your right
to grow this crop."

Even in that conflict which
has this elaborate history,

there is a climate aspect.

It's always a question
of how climate change

interacts with other
pre-existing problems.

If you have an area
that is already unstable

and then has the additional
challenge of sea level rise,

extreme weather events,

water shortages
or food shortages

or a disaster
that makes people move,

then you can start seeing
conflict situations.

It's all
the underlying conditions.

Climate change is the stimulus
or the catalyst

that can cause all of that
to agitate and become conflict.

From my perspective
as a former member

of the United States military

and 30 plus years
of service in uniform,

climate change is what we call
an accelerant to instability.

It is what's causing
a lot of the conflict

or helping assist the conflict

that's going on
around the world.

And you can see that
on the front pages

of the paper
virtually every day.

If you look
around the world today,

we can already see
conflict and climate in play

right under the headlines
that we're reading.

The international red cross

is now designating
Syria's deadly conflict

to be a full-blown civil war.

Think about relationships
we don't often look at.

The civil war in Syria,

now going on for years,

hundreds of thousands dead,

the entire region
is in chaos as a result.

A new study finds
climate change exacerbated

the worst drought ever
in modern Syria

as a consequence
of human interference.

Professor Richard Seager

says that a three-year drought

played a huge role
in pushing the Syrian people

into an all-out civil war.

This is the first study
that quantitatively

draws a connection
between climate change

and the onset of a conflict.

Syria began to experience

a serious multi-year drought

in the winter of 2006, 2007.

And that drought lasted
for three consecutive years.

Farming families just
cannot survive on the land

when a drought lasts that long.

As people try to feed
their families and can't,

they've got to go somewhere.

The drought caused
a large number

of young Syrian
men in particular

to leave farmland
and go to the cities.

Damascus, Aleppo,

one and a half plus
million people had to move.

That has a major
destabilizing impact

when people have
to pick up and leave

whether it's because of conflict
or resource scarcity.

As anyone can tell you,

a bunch of unemployed
young men in a major city

is not a recipe
for social stability.

Now Syria had already absorbed

about a million
and a half refugees

from Iraq who were fleeing
the civil war there.

Those numbers combined such

that the population
of Syrian cities

grew by about 30% or more.

That rate of migration
is absolutely catastrophic.

It drove food prices up,

it drove apartment prices up,

strained the health system,

all leading to the kinds
of conditions of discontent

to the all-out civil war

that is still going on now.

When we analyzed all the
precipitation data we could get,

we found that we just
couldn't attribute

such a long and serious drought

to natural climate
variability alone.

That particular drought was
two to three times more likely

because of climate change.

We of course did not say

drought was the sole cause
of the Syrian civil war.

It's the confluence
of multiple causes coming in,

with climate being one of them.

Climate change
is all about the water.

So we have climate change
leading to rainfall variability.

We don't necessarily know
when the water is gonna come.

We can't predict
that we're gonna get

the same amount of water
as we used to get,

and that is going to have
a huge impact

on whether or not
we can grow food.

So in the case of Syria,

we're talking about
how climate change

impacts water resources,

how that impacts food resources,

and what that means
for what people do for a living,

whether it's farm, herd animals,

or join a terrorist
organization.

This is a city draped in black

and a city raging with anger.

This is Isis,

the Islamic state
of Iraq and Syria.

As people moved
into those cities in Syria,

they were unemployed,
didn't have a source of food.

They needed
to feed their families.

ISIL promised them
both those things

despite the philosophy
behind their organizations,

people want to survive first.

Isis was pre-existing
in the region

and would have existed even there
had not been a drought in Syria,

but once the Syrian society
began to unravel,

every actor within that region

saw an opportunity
to try to use the crisis

to advance
their pre-existing agenda.

Isis has certainly
taken advantage

of scarce water resources,

creating leverage
over local populations.

Isis has just taken over a dam

near the key city of Ramadi,

shutting it down
and preventing water

from reaching two key towns.

Their goal, to quote
"kill people of thirst."

They're securing access
to river towns.

They're securing access
to water supplies,

and it's driving their strategy.

Water becomes
an instrument of war

for these people
who are looking to take over.

You control the water,

you control the livelihood
of the people.

Climate change is gonna impact
the amount of water.

It'll impact
who controls the water.

That'll impact the instability.

The climate change that
we're gonna be experiencing

over the next few years
is way in excess

of what we've experienced
up to now.

And I think the Syria case
is a real wake-up

for what
the consequences can be,

and this is really early on
in this game.

It's in the U.S.
national interest

to ensure that there's
a stability globally.

Those are things
that can come home to us.

You can always look at Syria

and say, "well, it's Isis,"

or, "well, it's Assad."

Yes, it is Isis.
Yes, it's Assad.

But there's a backdrop
which has to do with climate.

That's gonna happen
over and over and over again.

Each time we'll have a different
political or ideological story to tell,

each time it'll be true,

and each time the underlying
factor will be climate.

When you talk about
climate change,

it's a national
security challenge

in the broadest possible sense,

in that these changing
weather patterns over time

are going to affect
the way we live.

They're going to affect
our food supply,

our water supply, the heat
of the environment we live in.

Security in the broadest sense

is about all the things
that we care about day to day.

Are you safe?
Can you feed your family?

Can your children go to school?

When you talk about
climate change

as a national security challenge
in the military sense,

you're talking about
how does it affect

what the military has to do?

The missions it goes on,

or support here at home.

How does it affect what they need
to be ready for in the future?

We all know
that human activities

are changing the atmosphere

in unexpected
and in unprecedented ways.

I first saw the effects on national
security and national defense

in Somalia in the early '90s.

The essential nature
of that conflict

was originally caused by drought

and a lack of food,
simply stated,

and we began to see
a major trend.

Climate change
is one of the variables

that must be considered

when thinking about
instability in the world.

I'd like to turn now
to Sherri Goodman.

She served as deputy
undersecretary of defense

for environmental security.

Like many of you probably now,

you want to work on
the big issues of the day.

That's what I wanted to do,

so I was in the field
of national security.

Nuclear weapons and arms control
were the big challenges,

but it was actually
during an era

when environmental issues
began to be implemented

in places like
the defense department.

At the turn of the century,

there began to be recognition

that there was a nexus between

what's happening
in climate change

and national security.

We've seen this estimation
of climate change

as a significant risk

since the early days of the George W.
Bush administration.

The very first report from the
department of defense was in 2003

and identified the potential
national security implications

of abrupt climate change.

I was asked to take on
this challenge directly

in about the 2006 time frame,

and so I gathered the nation's

leading retired
military officers.

As a group, we are not your
traditional environmentalists.

CNA's military advisory board

is a group of senior retired
admirals and generals

from all five services that
have changed the conversation.

The view of the military
advisory board

is that we can't wait until
we have absolute certainty.

If we wait,
we might wait too long.

We released our initial report

"national security and
the threat of climate change"

in 2007.

We realized that climate change

would be a threat multiplier
for instability.

People become desperate because
they have extreme weather

and the seas are rising

and there are floods in one
area and droughts in another.

Fragile states become
more unpredictable.

That was definitional.

When that study came out,

it really set a baseline for how
to talk about this issue.

One of the key recommendations

of the CNA report

was to incorporate the
consequences of climate change

into a national
intelligence estimate.

In 2008, the idea
that came out of that report

was climate change exacerbated

existing societal tensions.

Social tensions
and economic costs

could lead to state
or regional instability

threatening U.S. interest.

It could contribute to inter-

and more likely
intrastate conflicts.

Climate change as a threat
to national security

worked its way
into the highest-level

strategic document produced
by the department of defense.

The quadrennial defense review,

the Pentagon's
bedrock strategic document,

has consistently identified
climate change

as an accelerant
of instability or conflict.

It was really the first time

that climate change was
addressed at that level.

We now see this signed out
by the secretaries of defense.

The climate change
adaptation road map

identified climate change
as posing immediate risks

to national security.

2014, we found that
the risks of climate change

are continuing to accelerate

and that they are now
a catalyst for conflict.

We've turned the corner,

and we really see
that climate change

is one of the big issues
of the 21st century.

I can remember once
getting in a discussion

with a career civilian
at the department of defense

who was expressing concern

about talking
about climate change

and said we have to use language

that doesn't, you know,
offend people,

that doesn't say
this is really happening.

And I just looked at him
and I said,

"that's incompatible
with U.S. government policy,"

and I, you know,
cited all these reports,

and said, "you need to look"

at what your own
government is saying

"and work from that."

We're gonna begin by recognizing

where admiral David Titley

was a member of CNA
military advisory board.

Whenever you're ready,
please begin.

I'm here today
not only representing

my views on security
implications of climate change,

but on the collective wisdom
of 16 admirals and generals.

Sir, our collective,
bottom-line judgment

is that climate change
is an accelerating risk

to our nation's future.

These serious impacts
to our security

will only continue to increase

in both frequency
and consequence.

Failure to think about
how climate change

might impact our globally
interconnected systems

and all elements
of U.S. power and security

is frankly a failure
of imagination.

There's a tendency to separate

thinking about domestic events
from international events

as if that was a real barrier.

What we do in this country

has a strong impact on people
elsewhere in the world

and vice versa.

So you really have
to start looking

at reciprocal interactions
between events

in different parts of the world.

When it comes to something
like climate change,

you begin to worry
about phenomena

that you weren't counting on

kicking in at some
indeterminate level.

Russia is on fire.

More than 500 wildfires

raging across
the drought-plagued country.

The heat wave
has ravaged farm land

and destroyed crops over an area

the size of Portugal.

This disaster could destroy

one of the nation's
biggest exports, wheat.

In 2010, there was
a major drought

which led to heat waves

in Russia and Ukraine
and in China,

which really devastated the
wheat crop in those countries.

It's the worst drought
in 200 years.

China's in a crisis,

but this is one
for the world to watch.

Commodity traders have reacted

to the fires and drought

by pushing up the price of wheat

to a 23-month high.

China, Russia started buying

a lot of wheat
on the global food market,

drove the prices up
significantly.

Because food is traded globally,

food prices can be influenced

by what's going on
all over the world.

If you are buying bread

in Damascus or in Cairo,

that grain has been traded
on an international market,

so it is sensitive
to climate fluctuations

from Kansas,
the Southern Australia,

and in Uruguay and Argentina.

What happens globally matters.

Globalization is inherently
unpredictable.

Since agricultural commodities

are all in one
global market now,

what China does
when it panic-buys

is it affects markets
all over the world.

Large shocks
on the global food supply

will always affect
the most vulnerable people,

because when the prices are being
determined internationally,

the food will go to those people
who have the most money.

Inevitably,
the poorer of the world

will be the ones who bear
the brunt of any shortfall.

Now, Egypt is one
of those countries

that's heavily dependent
on the global food market.

With a population
of more than 80 million,

the demand for daily bread
is high.

It has made Egypt the world's
largest importer of wheat.

In a number of areas
around the country,

the price of wheat went up 300%.

In a country that has to import

more than half
the wheat it needs,

flour has started to look
like gold dust.

Russia stopped exporting wheat

to the middle east
during that period.

Due to abnormally high
temperatures and drought,

I believe it is reasonable
to introduce

a temporary ban on grain
and wheat product exports

from the territory
of the Russian Federation.

When they cut that wheat off,

things became very unstable.

This is what
popular uprising looks like.

Protesters demanding
bread and freedom

and calling for government
officials to step down.

If you either don't have food

or you have food but now you have
to pay a whole lot more for it

and you don't have
that disposable income,

it becomes a huge threat.

You're probably
gonna do something about it.

These protests seem to be
a kind of chain reaction

across the middle east.

For decades, anger has simmered
throughout the Arab world...

anger over corrupt governments,

poverty, and a lack of freedom.

It's not just this very simple
"if a, then b."

Climate change can be
one of the causes

in kind of
a chain of events scenario

like in the Arab spring

that exacerbates an already
volatile political situation.

Central Cairo, a battlefield.

Bullets were flying
around Tahrir square.

Protesters looted weapons

and turned them on police.

The sudden shocks
of climate change

can lead to disruptions
and collapses.

So you're gonna have
fragile social systems

that just need one more shock

to tip them over the edge
into a different configuration,

into social breakdown, into war.

We have had,
for a couple of generations,

a sense that food
is not part of politics.

This is short-term, I'm afraid.

The problems
that we're having now

are unfortunately
a small fore taste

of what can happen because
of the interdependence

of climate, economics,
and politics.

It's generally the case

that all societies
seem to have trouble

thinking about the middle
and the long-term future.

Since there is a history
of catastrophe,

when we look at ourselves
in the present day,

history is the only opportunity
that we have for perspective.

When we look back
into the historical record,

we actually see that
the collapse of civilizations,

places like Angkor Wat,

where whole political
systems crumbled,

those things
seem to have occurred

right at the same time
that really large-scale

global climatic changes
were occurring.

The tong dynasty and
the classic Maya civilization

collapsed at almost
exactly the same time

on opposite sides
of the pacific ocean.

There was this large-scale event

that led to systematic
drying and warming

throughout both
of these regions,

and two great
civilizations fell.

There was a really coherent,
vivid picture

about how human society
around the world

and throughout time

has been interacting
with the climate.

Anywhere we look,
we see the same thing.

It's probably one of the most
repeated findings

in the last several years
in the field.

Past societies could observe
crop failure,

but they didn't know how
to explain it.

What gives us a chance
is that we can observe

not only local symptoms
of a problem like crop failure.

We can also observe the entire
globe and draw conclusions.

The question is whether we decide
we're gonna do that or not.

Today I want to speak to you

about the national
security risks

posed by a changing climate.

Just last month,
the administration issued

its 2015
national security strategy.

The strategy
includes climate change

as one of eight
top strategic risks

along with a catastrophic attack

on the United States soil

and the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction.

Climate change, once considered
an issue for a distant future,

has moved firmly
into the present.

We saw this
dramatically happen here

in the United States
with super storm Sandy.

The storm surge went over
a 12 1/2 foot wall

protecting a electrical system

and immediately plunged
lower Manhattan into darkness.

Without electricity,

our transportation
and health sectors

began to collapse.

We can see from events
over the last few years

the increasing not only severity
of natural disasters,

but the unpredictability
of their consequences.

As our world becomes
more interconnected,

as disasters happen in different
and unpredictable ways,

they cause cascading impacts
through our communities,

through our societies,
through our infrastructure.

The potential for what we call
cascading disasters

are much closer to home.

We're seeing in the west
of the United States

unprecedented drought...

Which sparks forest fires.

At the same time,
we might need to be responding

to increased activity
in the arctic.

We might be seeing
sea level rise in Florida

and on the east coast

interact with major storms
that might become more intense.

And as we go forward
as the climate changes,

we might see those things start
to happen simultaneously.

Are we ready to deal
with multiple disasters

at the same time
within the United States?

That's an open question.

We've also got to think about

the security
of our bases at home.

Norfolk, Virginia,
is where the vast majority

of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic
combat capability is based.

It's also at extreme risk
of sea level rise.

The Hampton roads
region of my state

is home to the largest naval
installation in the world,

naval station Norfolk.

Studies show
that the main Norfolk road

into the largest naval base
in the world

by 2040 will be inundated
by daily tides,

not even storm surges.

They're already raising
the level of the piers.

At the level they're at,
they're not gonna be able

to service the ships
that are coming in.

This is our largest
naval base in the world.

There's serious
considerations here.

The welfare of Norfolk
has global implications

because of the power
that is projected

from that place
around the world.

It's not just the case
where you'll deploy these forces

in a particular conflict,

but you'll also
have to deploy them

to respond to catastrophic
weather events,

and the prime example that I use

is typhoon Haiyan
in the Philippines.

We sent some 14,000
soldiers, sailors, airmen,

and marines in response
to that catastrophic event.

We were the only country
that's capable of doing that,

of deploying
that amount of forces,

that amount of distance.

As the sea levels rise,

as the storm surges increase,

as the rain rates increase,

it then becomes
a capacity issue.

How much of that can you do

before you start impacting
other missions?

Every two weeks
the U.S. military

now is getting
a disaster response.

So those same sailors
leave Norfolk, Virginia,

challenged by climate change,
challenged by sea level rise,

sail halfway around the world,

respond to a series of disasters

that are related
to extreme weather events

in the heavily populated
pacific rim,

and on the way home they may
steam through the middle east

where a civil war in Syria

and now in other parts
of the region continues to rage,

that in many ways
was accelerated by a drought

that was worse because
of climate change.

So they're seeing
the impacts of this

from the time they'd get on the
boat and go on the deployment

to the time they get home.

We're gonna have to make an increasingly
difficult series of choices.

We're already
making those choices

about where to go
and where to use resources,

when to respond and when not to.

80% of New Orleans
underwater right now.

I said, "we was planning on
leaving tomorrow if we could."

There's no question
that communities

that have fewer resources
are going to suffer more.

If you look in this country,

the effects
are going to be uneven.

Some places
are going to experience

more dramatic effects
than others.

People trapped in buildings

that have come down around them.

They have made desperate calls
to 911 asking for help,

asking for rescue,
but the rescuers can't get out.

People are now
living in parking garages.

Others picked up what they could

and moved to higher ground
on the interstate,

refugees in their own home town.

We don't have transportation.

I mean, we living
paycheck to paycheck.

It ain't like we're just able
to get up and just leave.

Those people who ignored
the evacuation orders

are simply going to have to wait
and rescue themselves.

Thousands of evacuees

sought refuge
inside the super dome,

only to be subjected
to an unspeakable

breakdown of law and order.

What Katrina shows is
that climate-related events

can create massive distress
on a scale of a whole urban area

and that that massive distress

can involve the collapse
of state structures.

You would never, never imagine

what you saw in the convention
center in New Orleans.

They are just left behind.

There's nothing offered to them
for the last four days.

They got children out here!

They got pregnant
women out here!

They won't even bring water!

They won't bring food!

You gotta go steal water
to drink to survive out here.

One can try to bracket that off

as some kind
of exceptional event,

but in fact Katrina is
a perfectly normal demonstration

of what actually happens.

Drop.

If the weather gets to the point

where it can break down
city governments,

and let's say it happens

to two or three city governments
at the same time

and federal authorities
are not only unwilling

but unable to assist,
then you get hurricane Katrina

on a national scale.

We want help!
We want help!

We want help!

We've built society
on this implicit assumption

of climate stability.

Within bounds, we know
what we're gonna get.

We know when to plant.

We know about how much
rain is gonna come.

Because we built our society
on this climate stability

and that stability is changing,

all these things
that we take for granted,

they're not just givens anymore.

Across the Sahel,
the crops have failed.

Hunger is stalking
tens of millions.

People are abandoning
their livestock

and moving to wherever
they can find water.

Relief workers fear if more
help doesn't come soon,

millions will starve.

The Sahel is
the semi-arid region

that stretches
from the Atlantic ocean

all the way over to Ethiopia.

It's the transition zone
between the Sahara

and the more humid,
forested conditions

further south.

That is a very
drought-prone region.

There's a lot of people making
their livelihood off agriculture,

and whenever there are droughts,

it leads a lot of people
to migrate.

The Sahel is already
a major conflict zone,

both with Islamic militants
and also nationalists.

This is the heart
of the problem in many ways.

Climate change
arrives in a world

that has already
been destabilized.

Darfur, the world's worst
humanitarian crisis.

More than 2 million people
forced to flee their homes

in what's widely portrayed
as an ethnic conflict.

But climatic changes
may also be a factor.

This is a region
where water's getting scarcer

and arable land shrinking,

pitting Arab nomadic grazers

against the predominantly
black farmers.

A lot of the violence that is now
accelerated by climate change

actually has its roots in these
older, deeper conflicts.

The drought exacerbated

existing societal cleavages.

There it was Muslim
and Christian.

It was the herders
versus the agrarians.

In every case, climate change

acted as a threat multiplier.

The numbers from Darfur
are staggering.

Since 2003, an estimated 400,000
people have been killed.

Another 2 1/2 million have been
forced into refugee camps

in neighboring
countries like Chad.

Drought and hunger have
made communities vulnerable.

Coups and rebellions
have made it unstable.

This fragile state
is now threatened

by poverty and neglect.

Climate change unfolds
on the landscape,

making their lives harder.

But the poverty
that was originally there

makes the response
to climate change worse.

A staggering 30 million people

are thought to survive
on lake Chad's ecosystem.

But what was once
of the world's largest lakes

has in just 40 years
shrunk by 90%.

Lake Chad, where
boko haram fighters

have launched recent attacks.

Water scarcity has caused
migration and instability

which boko haram has been able
to take advantage of.

Where there is already
instability,

extremists thrive.

More than a million people

have been forced to flee from
boko haram's wave of terror.

When you look at the modeling
that's being done now

for north Africa,

we see significantly
more drying.

We see significant
precipitation decline

well beyond what it is now.

Africa's a place where

very large numbers
of people need more land.

At the same time, something like
half of the unused arable land

in the world is in Africa.

Is colonialism taking root
in Africa once again?

Some of the countries
on that continent

may be the poorest in the world,

but the lush farmlands
are the envy

of richer nations
with infertile soil.

We've already seen
in the not-so-distant past

how China,
when there's a drought,

will panic-buy
agricultural commodities.

What if things were much worse?

What if that same country

thought that it doesn't
just need to panic-buy,

it needs to buy or lease
vast territories?

This is a scenario
which could unfold gradually

without anyone
really seeing it coming.

Slowly, slowly, slowly,
China controls,

at least legally,
an awful lot of territory

beyond its borders.

Whether one wants to moralize
and call that a land grab,

you can get a situation
where the local people

could have another idea.

If you're Chinese authorities,

you would rather have
instability in Africa

than instability at home.

We take our lifestyle
as being a fixed point

and then if anything's
going to change,

it's gonna be something else,

preferably something far away.

In the United States,
although we've done the most

to promote global warming,

we're gonna get hit by it
after other people

are gonna be hit by it.

In advanced societies,

we're very vulnerable
to confusing lifestyle

with life itself.

As the situation in Syria
has deteriorated sharply,

Jordan's Za'atari camp
for Syrian refugees

is now the size of a city.

After leaving the army I worked

with refugees on the ground
in the middle east,

in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon,

having seen what happens
when millions of people

uproot and leave a place,

the impact it has on them,

the impact it has on the country
they've taken refuge in,

this has major consequences.

That on a massive scale where
whole nations are on the move

may be what we're facing
in certain climate scenarios.

The world is in the grips

of the worst refugee crisis

since the second world war.

The vast majority
of those refugees

are hosted by some of
the world's poorest countries.

This camp is just overwhelmed

by the amount
of people coming here.

For the refugees, it's been
a litany of killings,

kidnappings, hunger,
and economic chaos.

The U.N.'S refugee agency

estimates the current total
at almost 60 million.

Shockingly, half are children.

We don't have the resources

to support all the victims
of conflict around the world.

We are no longer
able to pick up the pieces.

The loss of livelihood

is definitely
a human security risk.

In certain situations,

it can become an international
security risk.

A desperate search for nearly
1,000 people feared dead

after a ship
packed with migrants

capsized in
the Mediterranean sea.

It is the latest in a string
of deadly migrant boat sinkings.

Refugees fleeing Isis
and other militants

trying desperately
to cross into Europe.

Italy's coast guard and Navy

rescued 11,000 people
from the Mediterranean

in the last week alone.

Europe is suffering
a major migration crisis

because of
the conflicts in Syria,

the wider middle east,
and east Africa.

They've been arriving
by the boatloads

on European shores daily.

Now the head of the U.N.'S
refugee agency

is calling the migrant crisis
in the Mediterranean

total chaos.

They're willing
to risk their lives

and their family lives
to get to Europe.

That's pretty desperate.

It's a refugee crisis

with no precedent
in the European union's history.

As their numbers spiral
along with the death count,

Europe is under
acute pressure to act.

Tensions are at boiling point.

Macedonia closed its border.

Special forces fired
stun grenades into the crowd.

The E.U.'S response
has been criticized

as at best incoherent and at
worst callous and inhumane.

We're gonna put in more fencing,
more resources.

The politics
of the armed lifeboat

refers to an acknowledgement

that, yes, there is a crisis,

but, no, we are not
all in it together.

We have to keep the victims
of this crisis out

so we can carry on as before
on the other side of the wall.

What's alarming
is the behavior of people

in extreme circumstances

taking the risks they do.

People in countries
where instability was reigning,

they feel that they have
no other choice.

With the continuing turmoil
in the middle east,

the number of desperate people
willing to risk everything

is expected to rise.

Okay?

When we really step back,

people are pretty much the same.

We want adequate food,
adequate shelter,

safe water.

If you have large numbers
of displaced people

and their needs
are not being met,

then this becomes
a potential for instability.

Who is a climate refugee
and who is an economic refugee?

It's impossible to say.

The two things
are bound up together.

Most climate refugees
are not displaced

so clearly by climate change.

Rather it's a mix of forces

that drives them off the land.

Under international law,

there is no status
of climate refugee.

Part of this is political.

Because if there were,

then it would compel nations

to accept climate migrants
as asylees.

The longer
that climate change goes on,

the more that we feel it,

the more that we experience it,

people are gonna
wanna come north.

The only border which is real
is the atmosphere.

Everything else is permeable.

Linear thinking says
that if you have

a change of a certain magnitude
in a system,

you can predict the change
in its output.

Non-linearity says
relatively small changes

can lead to very large
and unpredictable circumstances

on the output side.

Let's suppose that the rate
of which the climate is changing

is not linear but is on a curve

that's getting very steep.

Take the rate at which
arctic ice is melting,

the rate at which
the glaciers are retreating.

At the beginning
of these processes,

you create a graph.

If I start measuring over time,

I keep on discovering
things are happening faster

than you might expect.

And all of our old projections

turn out to be
excessively conservative.

I worry about a discrepancy

between the rate at which

we set out
to deal with these things

and the rate at which
they are occurring.

What keeps me up at night

is a problem
of compounding risk.

A good example is Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is probably the
ground zero of climate change.

The impacts are going
to be more severe

in Bangladesh
than many other countries

where they have
smaller population size.

In a climate scenario
where sea level rise occurs,

especially if it occurs rapidly,

there's a real risk

that a large portion
of the Bangladeshi population

is gonna have to move.

The sea level will continue
to rise in the coming years,

because there is melting
at a faster rate than ever.

If there is a one-meter
sea level rise,

Bangladesh will lose about
20% of its land mass.

We are going to see a very large

climate refugee population.

Researchers have
estimated the numbers

to be about 30 million.

This is a humanitarian crisis
of epic proportions.

Where are these refugees
going to go?

India has already
unilaterally fenced Bangladesh

on all three sides.

A ten-foot, double-sided,

razor-wire-topped, what may be
the world's first climate fence.

It's inspired by Israel's wall
in the west bank,

and it's manned by 80,000
Indian guards.

Death can be the penalty
for crossing it

or even going near it,

with hundreds of unarmed
villagers killed

along what is now one of the most
dangerous frontiers in the world.

There are other reasons
for India to build that fence,

but probably the most pressing
and strategic reason

is to forestall
that climate migration.

No factor can be excluded

from the impacts
of climate change.

We have got to see the
consequences of the consequences.

We are going to see
multiple stressors

coming at one point at one time.

Stress on the water sector,
food sector,

physical infrastructure,

that could lead
to a state collapse.

It will be a problem
of the magnitude

that will destabilize
not only Bangladesh,

but it will severely impact
on international stability,

having consequences
beyond imagination.

We don't now have the luxury,
and we probably never will,

of sort of isolating
one driver of a situation

and saying, "okay, let's solve
for that driver."

We're always going to be
dealing with a layer cake

of inter-connected problems.

So if you have
a climate-change scenario

that's sufficient to raise
the sea level in Bangladesh,

what is that
temperature spike doing

to the Himalayan ice caps

that supply
the annual water cycle

for most of
the agricultural production

in the Asian-pacific region?

So now you've got potential
drought and food scarcity

in one area that's intersecting

with flooding and massive
refugee flows in the other area.

What's the political
situation when it happens?

If India and China are continuing
to have a border dispute

during this period of time,

that border dispute just got
a lot more serious.

This is something
that could place

massive stress
on the international system.

It's these compounding
risk factors,

these compounding dynamics

that I think ought
to really concern us.

If you look at issues
of water flow

from the Himalayan plateau,

there are countries that
are on the receiving end

of those flows of water
that are nuclear-armed.

If the supply of water
becomes increasingly tight,

then if somebody decides
to build a dam on their side,

that can look to somebody
on the losing end

like an act of war.

The risk of any conflict
in the modern world

is magnified by the fact

that at the end
of a chain of escalation,

you might arrive at countries

that have weapons
of mass destruction.

Our entire way of life
is based on fossil fuels.

Everything that you use
and touch in your daily life

in this highly-advanced economy

is moved to you
using that single source.

There's absolutely a link

between the way we use energy
and our security.

Oil is a globally-traded
commodity.

Events around the world
impact the supply

and the price here at home.

When Geo-political
decisions are made,

the price can go down,
the price can go up.

Many of our relationships
with autocracies

have been based in part
on assuring the supply

of fossil fuels.

We spend a tremendous
amount of time

keeping that
global supply flowing,

protecting it.

The threats are being ramped up

over a vital oil shipping route

which Iran
is threatening to block.

The strait of Hormuz

links the oil-producing states

of Bahrain, Kuwait,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia,

and the United Arab Emirates.

That's about 40% of the world's
oil that's shipped.

It's a major artery.

We spend $85 billion a year

defending strategic
choke points,

places like the straits
of Harmuz near Iran

or the straits of Malacca

in the heavily-contested
south China sea.

Real disruption would have

catastrophic consequences
for our economy.

Energy and natural resources

creates the arena for conflict

and defining what the playing
field will look like.

Climate change
is in that mix of causes.

In some cases,
it's changing the map itself.

Melting ice caps in the arctic

have ignited a military buildup.

The arctic circle
is believed to contain 30%

of the world's
undiscovered natural gas

and 15% of its oil.

As the ice melts,
it opens up resources.

It opens up trade routes.

It opens up land claims

that could become
more contentious.

Russia is making
a very bold move,

planting its flag
on the arctic sea floor.

Russia is holding
military exercises

involving tens
of thousands of troops.

It's disputed territory with
the United States and Canada.

Many fear a 21st-century
cold war in the frozen waters.

I'm honored to welcome three
former secretaries of state.

We've started a project
on the arctic.

There's a new ocean
being created there.

That hasn't happened
since the last ice age.

There are big melts all over
the world taking place.

The climate's changing.

And there are consequences.

If you say there's no connection
between security and climate,

or between oil
and our national security,

if you served
in these conflicts,

if you fought a war
in the middle east,

if you fought
in a burning oil field,

you might have a different view.

Convoy be advised,

border patrol vehicle
on the left-hand side.

My first deployment,
I was a young lieutenant

with an infantry unit in Iraq

south of Baghdad

in an area that was saturated

with improvised
explosive devices.

It came to be known
as the triangle of death.

That American military unit

on the ground
in Iraq or Afghanistan

has got to rely on a fuel supply

that comes a great distance

at risk and cost to reach them.

Every day, a logistics convoy

would have to leave
Baghdad airport

and drive to our
forward operating base.

We were taking the fuel from
the previous day's delivery,

putting it in a bunch
of Bradley fighting vehicles,

going out to escort the convoy
in with that fuel,

using a lot of the fuel,

and then putting
the next day's fuel

right in the Bradleys
to do all over again.

We took this highly
capable combat force

and turned it into, basically,
a self-licking ice cream cone.

Is hit.
Is down.

Almost every day,

that convoy was attacked.

Next, we're going to hear
from Mr. Michael Breen,

who is the executive director

of the Truman
national security project.

- Welcome, sir.
- Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Chairman Marquis,
ranking member Brasso,

thank you for the opportunity
to testify today.

Although we find ourselves in a
considerably better position

with regard to energy
than that of several years ago,

the lack of diversified
energy sources around the world

continues to create
vulnerabilities

for the United States
and our allies.

In addition, climate change makes our
current energy system unsustainable,

creating cascading risks
and impacts around the globe.

The U.S. should place
greater emphasis

on efficiency along with the
development of renewable sources,

and more resilient
distributed energy systems.

The department of defense

is one of the largest
customers in the world,

so when the department
invests in technologies

that are still very immature,

they're taking a very long view

of what they're going to need
in the future.

Those long-term investments
do have a great benefit

often for the civilian economy.

If the military had settled
on compass technology

as the perfect answer
to navigation,

we never would have had GPS.

So to stay ahead of the curve,

we have to keep investing.

And one of the things
I get asked in hearings

defending the budget is,
"is this the right time

to be investing in stuff
like alternative energy?"

And my response is,
"we can't afford not to now."

Secretary of the Navy

Ray Mabus took part
in signing a contract

for the largest biofuel
purchase in government history.

In the next ten years,
the air force academy

plans to generate
all of their own electricity

through renewable sources.

I'm encouraged that the military
is continuing to contribute

to the development
of new technologies,

but I don't think we can
be complacent about this.

Our military in the U.S.,

every military,
is ultimately in the business

of preventing, hopefully,
or prosecuting and winning wars,

and war is a destructive
human activity.

Militaries are not
gonna solve this for us.

An armored division is not
gonna defeat climate change.

You don't wanna turn
to your military

to solve what are really
civil society problems.

That's a dangerous game.

They do need to understand
how it all fits together,

because that's gonna affect
what they need to be ready for,

but that doesn't mean
it's their mission to fix it.

What keeps me up at night

is the possibility
that we'll have a world

where the risks associated
with climate change

are so dire and so
potentially unmanageable

that governments
start acting in ways

that are authoritarian.

That's a world
that I don't wanna live in.

That's a world I don't want
my children to live in.

And it's a world
that we see in these scenarios

that the United States
military produces.

We're at war with the most
dangerous enemy

that has ever faced mankind

in his long climb
from the swamp to the stars,

and it's been said
if we lose that war

and in so doing lose
this way of freedom of ours,

history will record
with the greatest astonishment

that those
who had the most to lose

did the least
to prevent its happening.

We spent billions of dollars
of our GDP during the cold war

to reduce the threat
of nuclear attack,

which is low probability
but very high consequence.

Now we face risks
from climate change

that are arguably as severe
and of higher probability,

and yet there is
in some quarters

a reluctance to face up
to the challenges

and build a resilient society.

Whether it's threats
from nuclear weapons

or international
terrorist organizations,

any percentage is unacceptable.

When you think
about climate change

as a risk-management issue,

then all of the actions
we need to take

are going to be on the table.

If we don't, then we're
going to have to make

some very, very
difficult choices.

Where can we make ourselves
more resilient?

Where can we make ourselves
more prepared?

Where can we act now
in order to mitigate

the consequences of decisions

that were made since
the industrial revolution?

There's a difficult truth
we've gotta face here.

As we've seen rising
awareness of the problem,

we've continued to accelerate
our contribution.

Reversing that may be

the most difficult
collective-action problem

we've ever faced.

I do think the biggest threat
is climate change

and its national
security aspects.

Our problem is that not everything
can be handled militarily,

and that we also have
a short attention span.

These are very
long-term problems.

This is a whole
of society issue.

We have to address it
in all of our institutions.

That means
all aspects of government.

It means the resources
and the political will.

It is a matter of cooperating,

and if you look at these issues,

it will require
American leadership

within a system that other
countries play a part in.

We have to lead.

The industrialized countries,

we're the ones who are doing

the vast majority of
the polluting here in the world.

We gotta step up to this.

Every aspect of national
security is about managing risk.

Our politicians in my opinion

should take a lesson
from the military.

They should start prudent
action to reduce emissions.

Congress won't lead
on this issue,

but they can be led.

That's why I continue to go
around and talk about this issue.

We need to find policy solutions

that can deal with it.

One of the things that I find
personally really distressing,

having worked
for Republicans and democrats,

is that something that should be
a point of convergence

has become so divisive.

This polarization has allowed us

to not really address
what we really need to do.

Resilience and improving
our ability to respond,

those are the least
that we should be doing.

That's, in military parlance,
the first line of defense.

One of the first things
they ever taught me

as a combat leader

was choosing to do nothing
is a choice.

Inaction is as much
of a decision

as any other course of action,

and it carries
those consequences.

It's a very dangerous thing

to decide that there is one
and only one line of events

heading into the future

and one and only one best
response for dealing with that.

When systems become invested
in an old way of thinking,

there is a moment
when those structures

start to break down.

The system resists
the idea of change

to a certain point,

and then the weight
of collective experience

says "something's
not working here."

We need a change."

I don't think you get
to that moment by slow degrees.

I think it occurs
like an avalanche.

And there comes a moment
when you have to know

when to change course.

Even as we spend
all of our time talking

about what humans are capable
of doing in a negative sense,

we don't know the limits
of what we're capable of doing

in a positive sense.

We haven't found that either.

The general drift
is in the wrong direction.

We have an awful lot of things
that we should be afraid of.

The window of action is closing.

But there wouldn't be any point
talking about all of this

if we didn't have
the knowledge which we do,

if we didn't have
the tools which we do,

and if we didn't have
unpredictable potential,

which we also do.

What people need
more than a fright

is some credible description
of a way out of the problem.

Energy independence
fundamentally

is about the ability
to meet our energy needs

from within our own borders
indefinitely.

There's no more
American concept than that,

and that means taking control
of our energy future

and investing in alternatives
to our current system.

The flip side
of the climate threat

is the energy
and resilience opportunity.

The more diversified we are
in our energy sources,

from a whole array of renewables

to innovative technologies,

the sounder and stronger
and more secure we will be.

One of the things we've seen

is a whole generation
of veterans

who have come back
from the conflicts

in Iraq and Afghanistan

with a very deep, personal
understanding of this challenge.

We've seen returning veterans

go into the renewable
energy industry,

installing solar panels
and starting companies.

They see not only
the technology of the future,

but they also see a mission.

They see a continuation
of public service

that drove them
to raise their hand

and volunteer to put on
the uniform in the first place.

We did not end the Stone age
because we ran out of stones.

We found something better.

Winston Churchill
is alleged to have said

that Americans can always be
counted on to do the right thing

after exhausting
every other possibility.

We're getting towards
the end of exhausting

all those other possibilities.

The response to climate change

involves a type
of industrial revolution.

We need to leave behind
the technologies

based on fossil fuels

and shift towards
a clean-tech renaissance.

The path forward already exists.

If you look at the rate at which
the technology is improving,

this actually
is an economic boon.

Doing what we should proactively

to deal with climate change

becomes part of the solution set

to what we should
be doing proactively

to deal with the economic
strength of the country.

These are the plays
that are gonna define

the 21st century either way.

We'll improve our security and
we'll improve our way of life.

We'll improve our economy.

We may also head off one
of the largest risks we face.

The most important thing
is for people to see

how actually tangible and, like,
within possible grasp

this change is.

I don't think that humanity
is guaranteed a pass

out of the problems that
it is creating for itself.

If we fail, then it is possible
that we can never again,

at any price,
obtain the kind of future

that we may be able to secure
for ourselves if we succeed.

The technological means
are in hand.

The wealth exists.

The question always is
is whether or not

the wisdom exists.

In any strategic system,

time is the most
precious resource.

It's the one thing
that cannot be replenished.