The U.S. Military on Peak Oil and Climate Change
The destabilizing nature of increasingly scarce energy resources, the impacts of rising energy demand, and the impacts of climate change all are likely to increasingly drive military missions in this century.
GENERAL CHARLES F. “CHUCK” WALD, USAF (RET.) Former Deputy Commander, Headquarters U.S. European Command (USEUCOM); Chairman, CNA MAB
Retired Air Force General Chuck Wald wants to see major changes in how America produces and uses energy. He wants carbon emissions reduced to help stave off the destabilizing effects of climate change.
“We’ve always had to deal with unpredictable and diverse threats,” Gen. Wald said. “They’ve always been hard to judge, hard to gauge. Things that may seem innocuous become important. Things that seem small become big. Things that are far away can be felt close to home. Take the pirates off the African coast. To me, it’s surprising that pirates, today, would cause so much havoc. It’s a threat that comes out of nowhere, and it becomes a dangerous situation.
“I think climate change will give us more of these threats that come out of nowhere. It will be harder to predict them. A stable global climate is what shaped our civilizations. An unstable climate, which is what we’re creating now with global warming, will make for unstable civilizations. It will involve more surprises. It will involve more people needing to move or make huge changes in their lives. It pushes us into a period of nonlinear change. That is hugely destabilizing.
“Our hands are tied in many cases because we need something that others have. We need their oil.
He gives another reason for major changes in our energy policy: He wants to reduce the pressure on our military.
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