{"id":54372,"date":"2022-02-23T19:32:30","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T19:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2022\/02\/23\/its-time-for-a-climate-change-version-of-the-manhattan-project\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:55:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:55:48","slug":"its-time-for-a-climate-change-version-of-the-manhattan-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/commentary\/2022\/02\/23\/its-time-for-a-climate-change-version-of-the-manhattan-project\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s time for a climate change version of the Manhattan Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anyone living under a rock for the last three weeks may be unaware of a new, award-winning movie sweeping streaming media and generating Twitter-worthy chatter. The tongue-in-cheek terror of \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d<\/a> tells the tale of two midlevel astronomers trying to warn the world of an approaching, apocalypse-inducing comet. Politicians, media talking heads and the public \u2014 now firmly rooted in their science-denying ways \u2014 mock them and ignore their warnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t take a theatrical allegory science degree to pick up on Hollywood\u2019s not-so-subtle (but also not-exactly-inaccurate) statement about America\u2019s overarching apathy toward global climate change. Last May, the Pew Research Center surveyed<\/a> more than 16,000 people around the globe about how much they\u2019d be willing to adjust their lifestyles to prevent future climate change catastrophe. Americans \u2014 more than nearly all the other nations surveyed \u2014 were far and away the most resistant to changing their behavior. Even more concerning, Pew found the reason for each stance was almost exclusively tied to the respondent\u2019s political leanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Defense Department is not immune to conflict surrounding its response to climate change<\/a>. Perhaps more understandable than mere political theatrics, the DoD must also focus on lethality, efficiency and speed. When asked about climate change concerns, some military planners assert they have \u201cmore relevant and dangerous\u201d threats to consider first. This argument may hold water in the extremely short term, but it loses all credibility beyond even the most immediate concerns. Global climate change is more than bigger snowstorms and warmer summers; it represents one of the most acute and dangerous threats our national security establishment has ever known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the casual observer can watch the effects of climate change in our daily lives. Wildfires and droughts are continuously searing the western United States; hurricanes and floods are pummeling coastal regions; larger and more deadly storms are sweeping across the plains; severe weather events are more powerful, last longer and claim more lives than ever before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last decade, dozens of U.S. military installations were impacted by \u2014 or in the case of Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018, completely destroyed by \u2014 increasingly violent, severe weather. The dangerous effects of global climate change \u2014 long discussed in the future tense by military planners \u2014 are now clearly on our doorstep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Clockwise: (1) Rapid erosion caused by flooding threatens a communications system at a U.S. Department of Defense installation in Europe. (2) At a DoD installation in Africa, high tides flood an area used for loading combat aircraft. (3) The U.S. Government Accountability Office visited a DoD location in the Pacific to observe a construction project to repair seawalls protecting ammunition depots. In a 2018 GAO report, DoD personnel said the repairs do not account for a potential increase in average sea levels. (4) Damage is shown after Hurricane Michael ripped through Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. The GAO said that in previous work it found it is not possible to link any individual weather event to climate change, though \u201cthe impacts of extreme weather events provide insight into … potential climate-related vulnerabilities.\u201d (U.S. Government Accountability Office; U.S. Defense Department; GAO; Courtesy of the U.S. Air National Guard)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The insidious rises in sea level and temperature are making the storms bigger, more frequent and deadlier. The DoD\u2019s 2019 \u201cReport on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense\u201d<\/a> identified 79 military installations put at risk by climate change, and significant money and effort is being spent protecting them from future \u201cweather attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it\u2019s not just key strategic installations at risk. The DoD\u2019s 2021 \u201cClimate Risk Analysis\u201d<\/a> states that \u201cclimate change is reshaping the geostrategic, operational, and tactical environments with significant implications for U.S. national security and defense.\u201d Former Arctic ice sheets are now open water and being militarized by America\u2019s competitors<\/a>. The U.S. is being called upon more frequently for humanitarian responses. Climate migration is driving conflict, instability and strife, and is expected to increase to unmanageable levels within two decades. Domestically, severe weather and rising sea levels threaten our electrical grids, transportation infrastructure and financial systems. Overseas, America\u2019s increased reliance on what then-Lt. Gen. James Mattis once called \u201cthe tether of [fossil] fuels\u201d poses a serious supply chain vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken individually, each of these threats would constitute a serious crisis for military planners. Combined, they should command our full attention. Even from a military perspective \u2014 especially from a military perspective \u2014 America\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d moment is here. Now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Manhattan Project<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

America faced another \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d moment in which the U.S. military, teaming with the greatest scientific minds of a generation, ushered the free world to safety and security. On Jan. 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt \u2014 faced with a seemingly endless world war as well as countless future human lives and resources at stake \u2014 officially approved the production of America\u2019s first atomic bomb. In a time when the U.S. military was called upon to prevent catastrophe, the Manhattan Project was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of unifying, science-based, goals-driven approach is exactly what America needs to lead the world in combatting climate change. A \u201cManhattan Project for Climate Security\u201d can be \u2014 and should be \u2014 established by the Defense Department as soon as possible. Except this time, the goal won\u2019t be an implement of destruction but rather a tool of global preservation. The DoD, unlike any other federal agency, is uniquely qualified with the preestablished national laboratories, academic relationships and (most critically) the budgets to undertake such a task. What\u2019s more, it has plenty of \u201cpaying it forward\u201d to do in terms of climate impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Americans would be stunned to discover just how much fossil fuel its military regularly consumes. According to research by the Department of Energy and Brown University\u2019s \u201cCosts of War\u201d project<\/a>, the DoD is responsible for the vast majority of the U.S. government\u2019s fossil fuel use: more than 648 trillion British thermal units in 2020. That\u2019s more than triple the consumption of every other U.S. government agency combined. The Defense Department is the single largest institutional emitter of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin\u2019s October 2021 Climate Adaptation Plan<\/a> is an excellent start, even if it focuses primarily on mitigating the effects of global climate change rather than the DoD\u2019s contribution to climate change. Even so, efforts across the DoD are bringing us closer to a stronger, more resilient and more sustainable force. Just a few weeks ago, the Army released it\u2019s first-ever climate strategy<\/a>, and the Air Force Research Laboratory are developing alternative, low- or zero-carbon-emitting energy sources<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not enough. Even if the entire DoD went zero carbon today, it would still barely move the world\u2019s climate change needle. Where the DoD can make meaningful change, however, is through a Manhattan Project-style initiative \u2014 except expanded globally. This focused effort would broaden global influence and maximize scientific research. Few institutions wield the DoD\u2019s budget or capacity for innovation. DoD inventors brought us radar technology, the microwave, the internet \u2014 even the first significant research linking climate change to human-created CO2 emissions was DoD-funded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now is the time for a DoD-led \u201cManhattan Project for Climate Security.\u201d Just as it\u2019s done throughout America\u2019s history, the U.S. military has the capability \u2014 and moral obligation \u2014 to lead America into a more sustainable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt. Col. Theodore \u201cDoc\u201d Shanks is a C-17A command pilot with the U.S. Air Force as well as a national defense fellow and visiting scholar at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, where he researches climate security and the effects of Air Force operations on global climate change. The views expressed in this commentary represent those of the author and not necessarily those of the U.S. Defense Department or the Department of the Air Force.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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