Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war: report
LONDON (AFP) - A secret report prepared by the Pentagon warns that climate
change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far
greater threat than terrorism.
The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was
covered up by "US defense chiefs" for four months, until it was "obtained"
by the British weekly The Observer.
The leak promises to draw angry attention to US environmental and
military policies, following Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on
climate change and President George W. Bush's skepticism about global
warning -- a stance that has stunned scientists worldwide.
The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, 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 Observer reported.
The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: "Disruption and conflict
will be endemic features of life.... Once again, warfare would define human
life."
Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of
planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business
Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered "
immediately" as a top political and military issue.
It "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national
security concern", they were quoted as saying.
Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report
include:
-- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia
as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020.
-- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands
uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California
that supplies all water to densely populated southern California
-- Europe and the United States become "virtual fortresses" trying
to keep out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising
sea levels or made unfarmable by drought.
-- "catastrophic" shortages of potable water and energy will lead to
widespread war by 2020.
Randall, one of the authors, called his findings "depressing stuff"
and warned that it might even be too late to prevent future disasters.
"We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start
tomorrow and we would not know for another five years," he told the paper.
Experts familiar with the report told the newspaper that the threat to
global stability "vastly eclipses that of terrorism".
Taking environmental pollution and climate change into account in
political and military strategy is a new, complicated and necessary
challenge for leaders, Randall said.
"It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no
enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat," he
said.
Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of conservative politics,
the report is expected to bring environmental issues to the fore in the US
presidential race.
Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists, an influential and non-
partisan group that includes 20 Nobel laureates, accused the Bush
administration of having deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its
policy agenda and having "misled the public".
Its 38-page report, which it said took over a year to prepare and
was not time to coincide with the campaign season, details how Washington "
systematically" skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others,
stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees and often refused
to seek independent expertise on issues.
Critics of the report quoted by the New York Times denied there was
deliberate misrepresentation and called it politically motivated.
The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew Marsall, cannot
be accused of the same partisan politicking.
Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the defense department for
decades, and was described by The Observer as the author of Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US
military.
美國防部密件曝光 指氣候變化將帶來全球浩劫
（法新社倫敦二十二日電） 英國「觀察家」週報二
十二日報導，美國國防部委託專家進行的機密報告提出
警告，全球的氣候變化將可能導致世界各地的大災難，
造成數百萬人喪生，災情遠比恐怖主義嚴重許多。
這份被國防部首長掩蓋了四個月之久的五角大廈密
件洩露後，預料將使美國的環保與軍事政策受到強烈的
質疑。美國拒絕在「京都議定書」簽字，且布希總統也
曾對全球氣候的變化警告提出懷疑，這種態度讓全球科
學家感到震驚。
這份報告由五角大廈主任馬歇爾主導，撰寫人為中
央情報局顧問、皇家荷蘭/殼牌石油集團前規劃主任史
瓦茲，以及加州「全球企業網絡」研究員藍道爾。報告
預測「氣候的劇烈變化將使地球瀕臨混亂狀態，國與國
之間會為了逐漸枯竭的水源、糧食及能源而以核武相威
脅」。
報告結論指稱：「混亂與衝突將成為生活的常態
....，人類的生活將再度陷入戰亂之中。 」
報告所舉未來可能發生的情景如下：
─二０二０年之前，歐洲氣溫快速下降，英國的冬
天將與目前的西伯利亞類似。
─荷蘭在二００七年之前將因強烈暴風雨之故，而
使大部分地區無法居住；美國加州南部供應廣大人口飲
用水的管線系統，將出現斷裂的危機。
─美國與歐洲成為「終極要塞」，將好幾百萬名因
海平面升高及因旱災土地無法耕種的移民排除在外。
─二０二０年之前，飲用水與能源的「極度」缺乏
導致各地發生戰亂。
這份出自保守派堡壘五角大廈的報告，預料將使環
保議題在總統選戰中成為焦點。200402
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