Environmental security and the evolution of military green think

From a piece by Cindy Ellen Hill in Counterpunch: …Climate change is one transnational factor driving urgency into the need for environmental-security community cooperation. Last year, CNA issued a ground breaking report National Security and the Threat of Climate Change authored by a team of 3 and 4 star generals and admirals. Military organizations increasingly realize that environmental problems challenge their assets, which threatens national and international security. Naval bases, for example, are by their inherent nature located in positions extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels. This realization has helped focus military organizational attention on environmental issues.

As floods, droughts, and shifting storm patterns grow in the wake of climate change, environmental organizations increasingly see the need for security force allies. One scenario on the table for discussion is the glaciers of the Himalayas, which are disappearing at an exponential rate, leaving billions of people who rely on the Indus, Ganges, and Yangtze river systems in danger of short term flooding and long term drought.

…As climate change progresses, analysts anticipate that security communities will increasingly be called upon to perform disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. “As the NGO community is already heavily involved in these activities, it will be critical for the military and NGOs to cooperate and develop a working relationship of each other,” Catarious says. “If the organizations look at each other with suspicion, the mission and people in need will not get the help they require.”...

Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, home to around 50,000 refugees from Myanmar/Burma. Crossing the fence is illegal. Shot by Mikhail Esteves from Bangalore, India, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License