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Fmr. Pacific Fleet Commander warns Obama:
Don’t link climate change and national security
Open letter to President Barack Obama
Adm. James A. Lyons, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Chairman
, Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
January 27, 2010
President Barack Obama The White House Washington , DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing you ahead of your State of the Union address to caution you against drawing premature
conclusions about the national security implications of climate change and cap-and-trade legislation.
Media reports indicate that you may frame climate change as a national security issue to prod Congress into passing
cap-and-trade legislation, like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House last June.
But recent developments underscore the danger of such action.
During 2009, much testimony was heard in the Senate about how
Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 leading to regional freshwater shortages that could destabilize the relationship between India and Pakistan . This concern was originally given credence by the United Nations’
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 assessment of the science. Sen. John Kerry, in his comments and speeches last year, noted how this region is home to Al Qaeda.
But just last week, the IPCC
issued what has been called an unprecedented apology for including the Himalayan glacier claim in its report. The IPCC said that the Himalayan glacier claim was “poorly substantiated” and the claim was made in violation of “the
clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures.”
In addition to the Himalayan glacier controversy, investigations by the IPCC, University of East Anglia and Penn State University are
still ongoing into the so-called Climate gate scandal, in which thousands of e-mails between senior IPCC scientists have given rise to concerns about inappropriate data manipulation and censoring of opposing scientific views
with respect to climate change.
In addition to these significant controversies related to the science underpinning concerns about climate change, it is also important to consider how climate change policies will impact
the military. To the extent, for example, that the national response to climate change makes energy more expensive and less available, and distracts the military and national security agencies from their core mission of keeping
America safe, it could very well be that the true threat to national security is not climate change, but our response to it.
According to studies by the Congressional Budget Office and others, Cap and Trade legislation
could force U.S. energy producers to close facilities and cut production to comply with its mandates. Foreign energy producers would not believe their good fortune as they would only stand to benefit from such action.
Mr. President, I recommend that you consider establishing an independent commission of military and national security experts to examine the implications of climate change and related policies to national security. It is too
important an issue to be driven by unsubstantiated claims, tainted by scandal and to result in counterproductive policies.
Sincerely,
Admiral James A. Lyons, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Chairman,
Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
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