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Winds of Change Newsletter, March 2010 See sidebar for table of contents
Global Warming / Climate Instability in the Mountain State Articles below:
Landmark Shift: US DoD Formally Targets Climate Change by Jerry Cope, excerpted from a Feb. 2. 2010, Huffington Post The US Department of Defense has issued the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress. The review specifically addresses climate change as a national security issue. Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration. Despite the media attention devoted to climate "skeptics" and the recent scandals regarding "climategate" and the exaggerated conclusions of the IPCC regarding the rapidity of Himalayan glacier melt, the DoD policy is unequivocally based on the conclusive evidence of a warming planet and the global consequences which follow. The US Global Change Research Program, composed of 13 federal agencies, reported in 2009 that climate-related changes are already being observed in every region of the world including the United States and its coastal waters. Among these physical changes are increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the oceans and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. The National Intelligence Council determined that 30 DoD coastal facilities are facing increased risks due to rising sea levels. Energy supplies are of critical importance to national security on both strategic and operational levels and are threatened by a changing global climate system and political instability. A significant portion of the report addresses energy issues. The department is increasing its use of renewable energy supplies and reducing energy demand to improve operational effectiveness, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in support of US Climate change initiatives, and protect the department from energy price fluctuations. The military departments have invested in non-carbon power sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energy at domestic installations and in vehicles powered by alternative fuels, including hybrid power, electricity, hydrogen, and compressed natural gas. The DOD Quadrennial Defense Review is a landmark document where the US Department of Defense for the first time brings climate change into formal policy and incorporates these considerations into all future national defense planning. Read the full article at: tinyurl.com/cope-dod. GAO: Mining Permits Seldom Include Commercial Development by Ken Ward, Jr., excerpted from Dec. 9, 2009, Charleston Gazette While the area of Appalachia affected by surface coal mining has increased, it has also become more concentrated in a few coalfield counties, and mine operators still propose little in the way of post-mining development of land flattened by mountaintop removal, according to a new federal report issued (in December). And since 2000 alone, new permits have been issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection that would allow mine operators to bury 177 miles of West Virginia streams with waste rock and dirt, according to the report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. GAO investigators found that despite the controversy over mountaintop removal there "is limited public access to information on the size, location and life span" of mining operations. Findings include:
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