Be Neither denier nor disengager. My response to people like those at ThinkProgress/ClimateProgress who disclaim any links between ebola and climate change: stop minimizing and deal with both consequences now for it's too late to dither about causes. This Canadian pathogen data sheet on ebola raises a different perspective from that of U.S. media reports.
The 2014 QDR lists climate change as a threat multiplier. Climate change makes pandemic more likely. Climate warming & drying make likely movement by people who are at great risk of aggravating tendencies toward pandemic events. United States cannot undergo retrenchment, reduction, curtailment, "a cutting of expenses", U.S. dis-engagement in the world needs, in an attempt to avoid conflict and reduce its burdens from its global responsibilities, the world it helped to make, and the international system it helped build and has guaranteed for better or worse. Cowards and deniers are not helping the U.S. when they advocate refusals to aid ebola victims, health-carer givers/helpers (like NIH, CDC, Médecins Sans Frontières [MSF] a.k.a. Doctors Without Borders, Samaritan’s Purse, etc.) or to ignore the imperiled, fragile regional and global climate and attempt to forbid ("defund...") involvement by overstretched ministries of health and private non-governmental organizations.
The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) says:
"People expect the Department of Defense to assist civil authorities in saving and sustaining lives after natural and man-made disasters, including extreme weather events, pandemics, and industrial accidents"
The National Defense Panel (NDP) Assessment of the 2014 QDR arises from a Congressional mandate to make a report,
“Ensuring a Strong Defense for the Future,” written at the request of the Department of Defense.
NDP is comprised of 10 members who are appointed by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. The NDP is facilitated by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a reportedly "honest, non-partisan convener of sometimes difficult conversations related to America’s security.” Kristin Lord, USIP's acting president, says “The NDP is the most recent in a long list of practical discussions involving senior leaders hosted, and led, by the Institute.” USIP has also facilitated the work of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, the Task Force on the United Nations, the Iraq Study Group, the Afghanistan Senior Working Group, the Genocide Prevention Task Force, and others.
NDP co-chairs Dr. William Perry and General John P. Abizaid a month ago wrote to Congress:
“Our report stands on its own findings and recommendations. There were no dissenting opinions. This is a consensus report. We urge both the Congress and the Department to take our recommendations to heart and expeditiously act on them. ... We must act now to address our challenges if the nation is to continue benefiting from its national security posture.”
In line with 10 U.S.C. § 118: US Code – Section 118: Quadrennial Defense Review ( "...(g) Consideration of Effect of Climate Change on Department Facilities, Capabilities, and Missions ... (3) For planning purposes to comply with the requirements of this subsection, the Secretary of Defense shall use- (A) the mid-range projections of the fourth assessment report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ... and (C) findings of appropriate and available estimations or studies of the anticipated strategic, social, political, and economic effects of global climate change and the implications of such effects on the national security of the United States... ), The NDP Assessment considers
"... an increasingly unstable and unfriendly global climate": "Competition for secure access to natural resources: Various demographic and environmental challenges including global population increases and climate change will increase tensions between and among states and peoples over food and water resources, as well as other natural resources. These tensions will become most acute in Africa and the Middle East. ... We agree with the conclusion of the Independent Panel that reviewed the 2010 QDR: “As the last 20 years have shown, America does not have the option of abandoning a leadership role in support of its national interests. Those interests are vital to the security of the United States. Failure to anticipate and manage the conflicts that threaten those interests—to thoughtfully exploit the options in support of a purposeful global strategy—will not make those conflicts go away or make America‘s interests any less important. It will simply lead to an increasingly unstable and unfriendly global climate and, eventually, to conflicts America cannot ignore, which we must prosecute with limited choices under unfavorable circumstances—and with stakes that are higher than anyone would like.”
We were told (2010 National Security Strategy) in one succinct sentence,
"Climate change and pandemic disease threaten the security of regions and the health and safety of the American people."
President Bush promised (2006 NSS) "...to increase our cooperation
to combat disease pandemics and reverse environmental degradation." He touted, " Department of Defense will respond to catastrophic challenges involving ... deadly pandemics and other natural disasters that produce WMD-like effects". Deniers and disengagers, did you listen to your beloved President?
World leaders are failing to address the spreading from, as J. Stephen Morrison just put it,
"three exceptionally poor, contiguous countries, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, each with acutely inadequate public health infrastructure, poor governance, and up to now utterly ineffectual national leadership."
States with biological-disaster response capacity, including civilian and
military medical capability,
"... must immediately dispatch assets and personnel to West Africa. We are in Uncharted waters: it is imperative that States immediately deploy civilian and military assets with expertise in biohazard containment."
This is another conflict America cannot ignore, which we must prosecute with limited choices under unfavorable circumstances—and with stakes that are higher than anyone would like.
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AR5WGI video -- Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis; Pub. Nov 21, 2013;
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Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis -- IPCC Working Group I Contribution to AR5 -- AR5WGI Report 259 authors 39 countries 54,677 comments;
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AR5WGII presentation slide deck -- Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability;
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Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability -- IPCC Working Group II Contribution to AR5 -- AR5WGII Report 309 authors 70 countries 50,444 comments
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AR5WGIII -- Mitigation of Climate Change presentation slide deck ;AR5WGIII -- Mitigation of Climate Change graphics
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Mitigation of Climate Change -- IPCC Working Group III Contribution to AR5 -- AR5WGIII Report 235 authors 57 countries 38,315 comments
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Synthesis Report (information link tba) will be considered in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 27-31 October, 2014
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