Climate Security Threat Matrix Must Be Priority

The climate system is a complex of thermodynamic energy transfers, moving between the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Our local experience of weather—hot summers, breezy autumns, monsoon rains, tropical cyclones, droughts, floods, blizzards and mudslides—is an expression of the way climatic forces play out over time.

As more thermodynamic energy gets trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, the excess destabilizes patterns of energy transfer that sustain vital ecosystems. Those ecosystems sustain life as we know it. When the global climate system’s dominant patterns are destabilized, vast and complex new security risks emerge.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

Joseph Robertson is Executive Director of Climate Civics International (climatecivics.org). He represents CCI in the UNFCCC negotiations and other United Nations processes, and in the Earth Diplomacy Leadership Initiative. He is Chief Strategist for Resilience Intel and the Climate Value Exchange, and a member of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition Advisory Group. Joseph is a principal in the Good Food Finance Network, co-leading efforts to establish a new co-investment platform for food systems transformation and the Integrated Data Systems Initiative. He previously served as Interim Director for the Food System Economics Commission, during its start-up phase, and as Senior Advisor, Sustainable Finance, for the EAT Foundation. He is the founder of Geoversiv (earthintel.org) and The Navigator (navigatornews.net).

Climate Change is a Threat Multiplier

Climate Security Roundtable at American Legion discusses nexus between energy, water, food & national security

Citing the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, Brigadier General Gerald Galloway (ret.), on Friday June 27, told representatives of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Earth Policy Institute and Citizens’ Climate Lobby, that “climate change is a threat multiplier” and will shape the future operating environment. As water and food become more scarce and life-supporting ecosystems are degraded, as the costs of coping with disasters rise, the opportunities for chaos and instability to take root also increase.

Posted by Joseph Robertson

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