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Navy Quietly Ends Climate Change Task Force, Reversing Obama Initiative
It’s shocking to see the Navy drop its climate change task force. The climate crisis is a serious security issue and our Armed Forces need to be prepared. Our military needs to be able to do their jobs. It will be more difficult and costly if ignored.
The Navy has quietly stood down its Task Force Climate Change, created in 2009 to plan and develop "future public, strategic, and policy discussions" on the issue.
The task force ended in March and the group's tab on the Navy's energy, environment and climate change website was removed sometime between March and July, according to public archives.
Some details on what the Task Force Climate Change ("TFCC") has been doing over the past 10 years:
Since it started, the TFCC released several reports on the strategic challenge climate change poses, taking a close look at what the melting Arctic means for strategic planning, and the dangers sea-level rise and extreme weather pose to many naval installations.
Alice Hill, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former senior director for resilience on the National Security Council under President Obama, said she created a Department of Homeland Security task force modeled on the one created by the Navy. "They did great work; they were the first task force within the Department of Defense," Hill said. "We viewed them as a model of how the government should initially focus on the problem of climate change."
....for military leaders in a 2010 report by U.S. Joint Forces Command. It was forwarded and signed by then-Gen. Mattis.
The JOE — Joint Operating Environment — assessment cautioned that climate change had become one of the top 10 trends facing military leaders, especially commanders who might be called to conduct missions in coastal zones less than 10 meters above sea level.
That’s where about one-fifth of the world’s population lives, people who are uniquely at risk for floods, tsunamis, hurricanes and other potential disasters. “If such a catastrophe occurs within the United States itself — particularly when the nation’s economy is in a fragile state or where U.S. military bases or key civilian infrastructure are broadly affected — the damage to U.S. security could be considerable,” the report warned.
TFCC has Climage Change in its name. Therefore, it was purposely quietly shut down by this Republican administration.
Normally when a task force ends, "there will be a culminating report that says now all of the activities the task force has either have been completed or taken to other areas."
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Jon White, who ran TFCC from 2012 to 2015, said he is "suspicious" of how quietly the TFCC shut down, something that even he, as a former director, only heard about "third and fourth hand" as more of a rumor than actual fact. "It was a very quiet canceling of the task force. I didn't know about it; no one told me," he said. "Usually, when you stand down a task force, you want to be able to go in there and declare victory."
The task force did not release a final report, nor has the Navy indicated the exact offices that will be taking over the task force's area of responsibility.
....ending the task force has more to do with a pattern of climate change denial in Trump's administration.
Ongoing scientific research shows that active / former military are concerned about climate change. Crucially, publicizing military concern about climate change increases public concern. Additional reading on this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Og_Ei4oC0LMvpXW-5d1sy8Nxgw31YAZ4/view
Sources:
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060877355