Depriving terrorists of petro dollars, reducing pollution, leading the way to create new, lucrative industries; up to now most of those benefits of alternative and renewable energy have elicited little more than derision or apathy from conservatives. Maybe we should have been stressing the war angle to gin up bipartisan enthusiasm:
The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say. Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.
And if that does come to pass, wouldn't it be great if we no longer relied on critical energy supply lines stretching halfway around the world, hanging out in the kind of vulnerable way that would surely make those same military analyst cringe. More from Prof Ricky Rood at the WeatherUnderground.