On Pentagon's global warming report

All the usual professional environmentalists and leftish journalists most probably couldn’t believe their luck when they discovered this Pentagon report: An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States National Security (pdf).

Here the pentagon was telling Bush, that he’d been wrong all along and all the worst case scenarious had been confirmed. Can you imagine the childish excitement that these guys felt when they read the report?

They were definitely excited enough to forget (or ignore) the following disclaimer on the first page:

Imagining the Unthinkable

The purpose of this report is to imagine the unthinkable ­ to push the boundaries of current research on climate change so we may better understand the potential implications on United States national security. We have interviewed leading climate change scientists, conducted additional research, and reviewed several iterations of the scenario with these experts. The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario depicted is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than on globally. Second, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller. We have created a climate change scenario that although not the most likely, is plausible, and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately.

The Observer journalists are so excited that they write:

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

Note the classic hidden disclaimer word “could”, which always saves sensationalist journalists. The fact of the matter is that for a left oriented journalist this is about as good as it gets. Imagine a National Enquirer journalist receiving an anonymous phone call about Michael Jackson and Madonna’s love child, and you start seeing the need to kind of ignore the traditional levels of fact checking (that argually hardly any journalists bothers themselves with anymore).

So what was the original purpose of the article?

All that Schwartz and Randall did was to investigate the “worst-case” possible events, those that are highly unlikely to happen but, if they did happen, would be catastrophic, especially in their impacts on U.S. military operations — “low probability, high impact” events, as they are known in the futurological world.

Unlikely though such events are, such studies are valuable, Schwartz said — as valuable as if, say, someone in the 1990s had investigated the highly unlikely looking possibility that someone would try to destroy the World Trade Center by flying two airplanes into it, he noted.

Unfortunately, the distinction between prediction and highly improbable was muddied by some of the more frantic press coverage, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Commander Dan Hetladge. “It’s a tempest in a teacup,” he said with a chuckle Tuesday. SFGate

In other words it was a pretty standard piece of long term scenario analysis which is often done by strategists in defence departments the world over. The article covers a long term highly improbable worst case scenario, nothing more nothing less. Yes the article mentions that environmental issues should be taken into account by the Pentagon for future strategy, which it definitely should, as should any other economic and political issues.

Now, as many full time environmentalists point out, if it could happen however improbable, we should do everything in our power now to stop it. Thus such highly comical plans such as the Kyoto agreement. This would definitely provide more steady long term paid work for them and their offspring. For further discussion of this dynamic, see:

A philantropic act becomes an economic act for one or more parties in the philanthropic chain when said parties become (or appears to be) dependent on their role for survival Pelle’s 2nd Law

For a really good indepth analysis of why this thinking is wrong, please see The Sceptical Environmentalist, the first chaper is available online (pdf).

My fellow Dane Bjørn Lomborg became the most hated guy in the environmental world as scientists were seeing their research grants dissapearing in front of their eyes.

What he has tried to do, is to through the use of statistics and probability try to analyse what the most likely scenarios are and what we can do to more efficiently combat such things as global warming. Contrary to popular belief he doesnt say that Global Warming wont happen, he just says that it is unlikely to be as extreme as many people in the industry claim. For example, he says that rather than focus on large economically expensive programs (Kyoto) that arent likely to work anyway, we should focus on economic development and new technology, which historically have helped the environment more. This is in particularly true of third world economies, who environmentalists would prefer to revert back into rural semi stone age societies.

Anyway, what is the conclusion here? You really need to take with a grain of salt the current alarmist approach to environmental journalism. As my second law states, anyone who makes a living from a certain outcome can only with difficulties be seen as impartial. You need to plan for the unexpected, but not necessarily move into a former missile silo in Kansas to hide from the comming alien attack.