CLIMATE COLLAPSE\
The Pentagon\'s Weather Nightmare\
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother
of all national security issues.\
By David Stipp

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let\'s face
it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al
Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote
climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In
fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon\'s strategic
planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming,
rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing
the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the
ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world\'s climate can lurch
from one state to another in less than a decade---like a canoe that\'s
gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don\'t know
how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate
change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the
need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies---thereby upsetting
the geopolitical balance of power.

Though triggered by warming, such change would probably cause cooling in
the Northern Hemisphere, leading to longer, harsher winters in much of
the U.S. and Europe. Worse, it would cause massive droughts, turning
farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. Picture last fall\'s
California wildfires as a regular thing. Or imagine similar disasters
destabilizing nuclear powers such as Pakistan or Russia---it\'s easy to
see why the Pentagon has become interested in abrupt climate change.

Climate researchers began getting seriously concerned about it a decade
ago, after studying temperature indicators embedded in ancient layers of
Arctic ice. The data show that a number of dramatic shifts in average
temperature took place in the past with shocking speed---in some cases,
just a few years.

The case for angst was buttressed by a theory regarded as the most
likely explanation for the abrupt changes. The eastern U.S. and northern
Europe, it seems, are warmed by a huge Atlantic Ocean current that flows
north from the tropics---that\'s why Britain, at Labrador\'s latitude,
is relatively temperate. Pumping out warm, moist air, this \"great
conveyor\" current gets cooler and denser as it moves north. That causes
the current to sink in the North Atlantic, where it heads south again in
the ocean depths. The sinking process draws more water from the south,
keeping the roughly circular current on the go.

But when the climate warms, according to the theory, fresh water from
melting Arctic glaciers flows into the North Atlantic, lowering the
current\'s salinity---and its density and tendency to sink. A warmer
climate also increases rainfall and runoff into the current, further
lowering its saltiness. As a result, the conveyor loses its main motive
force and can rapidly collapse, turning off the huge heat pump and
altering the climate over much of the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists aren\'t sure what caused the warming that triggered such
collapses in the remote past. (Clearly it wasn\'t humans and their
factories.) But the data from Arctic ice and other sources suggest the
atmospheric changes that preceded earlier collapses were dismayingly
similar to today\'s global warming. As the Ice Age began drawing to a
close about 13,000 years ago, for example, temperatures in Greenland
rose to levels near those of recent decades. Then they abruptly plunged
as the conveyor apparently shut down, ushering in the \"Younger Dryas\"
period, a 1,300-year reversion to ice-age conditions. (A dryas is an
Arctic flower that flourished in Europe at the time.)

Though Mother Nature caused past abrupt climate changes, the one that
may be shaping up today probably has more to do with us. In 2001 an
international panel of climate experts concluded that there is
increasingly strong evidence that most of the global warming observed
over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities---mainly the
burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal, which release
heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Indicators of the warming include
shrinking Arctic ice, melting alpine glaciers, and markedly earlier
springs at northerly latitudes. A few years ago such changes seemed
signs of possible trouble for our kids or grandkids. Today they seem
portents of a cataclysm that may not conveniently wait until we\'re
history.

Accordingly, the spotlight in climate research is shifting from gradual
to rapid change. In 2002 the National Academy of Sciences issued a
report concluding that human activities could trigger abrupt change.
Last year the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, included a
session at which Robert Gagosian, director of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, urged policymakers to
consider the implications of possible abrupt climate change within two
decades.

Such jeremiads are beginning to reverberate more widely. Billionaire
Gary Comer, founder of Lands\' End, has adopted abrupt climate change as
a philanthropic cause. Hollywood has also discovered the issue---next
summer 20th Century Fox is expected to release The Day After Tomorrow, a
big-budget disaster movie starring Dennis Quaid as a scientist trying to
save the world from an ice age precipitated by global warming.

Fox\'s flick will doubtless be apocalyptically edifying. But what would
abrupt climate change really be like?

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From the [Feb. 9,
  2004](http://www.fortune.com/fortune/information/Magarchive/0,16011,magarchive-02-09-04,00.html)
  Issue

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CLIMATE COLLAPSE\
The Pentagon\'s Weather Nightmare\
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother
of all national security issues.\
By David Stipp

Scientists generally refuse to say much about that, citing a data
deficit. But recently, renowned Department of Defense planner Andrew
Marshall sponsored a groundbreaking effort to come to grips with the
question. A Pentagon legend, Marshall, 82, is known as the Defense
Department\'s \"Yoda\"---a balding, bespectacled sage whose
pronouncements on looming risks have long had an outsized influence on
defense policy. Since 1973 he has headed a secretive think tank whose
role is to envision future threats to national security. The Department
of Defense\'s push on ballistic-missile defense is known as his
brainchild. Three years ago Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld picked him
to lead a sweeping review on military \"transformation,\" the shift
toward nimble forces and smart weapons.

When scientists\' work on abrupt climate change popped onto his radar
screen, Marshall tapped another eminent visionary, Peter Schwartz, to
write a report on the national-security implications of the threat.
Schwartz formerly headed planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group and has
since consulted with organizations ranging from the CIA to
DreamWorks---he helped create futuristic scenarios for Steven
Spielberg\'s film Minority Report. Schwartz and co-author Doug Randall
at the Monitor Group\'s Global Business Network, a scenario-planning
think tank in Emeryville, Calif., contacted top climate experts and
pushed them to talk about what-ifs that they usually shy away from---at
least in public.

The result is an unclassified report, completed late last year, that the
Pentagon has agreed to share with FORTUNE. It doesn\'t pretend to be a
forecast. Rather, it sketches a dramatic but plausible scenario to help
planners think about coping strategies. Here is an abridged version:

A total shutdown of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill like
the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the coast of
Portugal. Or the conveyor might only temporarily slow down, potentially
causing an era like the \"Little Ice Age,\" a time of hard winters,
violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850. That period\'s
weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was mild compared with
the Younger Dryas.

For planning purposes, it makes sense to focus on a midrange case of
abrupt change. A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the Northern
Hemisphere that suddenly came on 8,200 years ago fits the bill---its
severity fell between that of the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age.
The event is thought to have been triggered by a conveyor collapse after
a time of rising temperatures not unlike today\'s global warming.
Suppose it recurred, beginning in 2010. Here are some of the things that
might happen by 2020:

At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather
variation---allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a \"blip\" of little
importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with
uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is
happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to five degrees
Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia and up to six
degrees in parts of Europe. (By comparison, the average temperature over
the North Atlantic during the last ice age was ten to 15 degrees lower
than it is today.) Massive droughts have begun in key agricultural
regions. The average annual rainfall has dropped by nearly 30% in
northern Europe, and its climate has become more like Siberia\'s.

Violent storms are increasingly common as the conveyor becomes wobbly on
its way to collapse. A particularly severe storm causes the ocean to
break through levees in the Netherlands, making coastal cities such as
the Hague unlivable. In California the delta island levees in the
Sacramento River area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system
transporting water from north to south.

Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states, along
with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now, causing
widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better positioned to
cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse growing climates,
wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That has a downside, though:
It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and fosters bellicose
finger-pointing at America.

Turning inward, the U.S. effectively seeks to build a fortress around
itself to preserve resources. Borders are strengthened to hold back
starving immigrants from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
islands---waves of boat people pose especially grim problems. Tension
between the U.S. and Mexico rises as the U.S. reneges on a 1944 treaty
that guarantees water flow from the Colorado River into Mexico. America
is forced to meet its rising energy demand with options that are costly
both economically and politically, including nuclear power and onerous
Middle Eastern contracts. Yet it survives without catastrophic losses.

Europe, hardest hit by its temperature drop, struggles to deal with
immigrants from Scandinavia seeking warmer climes to the south. Southern
Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa and
elsewhere. But Western Europe\'s wealth helps buffer it from
catastrophe.

Australia\'s size and resources help it cope, as does its location---the
conveyor shutdown mainly affects the Northern Hemisphere. Japan has
fewer resources but is able to draw on its social cohesion to cope---its
government is able to induce population-wide behavior changes to
conserve resources.

China\'s huge population and food demand make it particularly
vulnerable. It is hit by increasingly unpredictable monsoon rains, which
cause devastating floods in drought-denuded areas. Other parts of Asia
and East Africa are similarly stressed. Much of Bangladesh becomes
nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates
inland water supplies. Countries whose diversity already produces
conflict, such as India and Indonesia, are hard-pressed to maintain
internal order while coping with the unfolding changes.

As the decade progresses, pressures to act become irresistible---history
shows that whenever humans have faced a choice between starving or
raiding, they raid. Imagine Eastern European countries, struggling to
feed their populations, invading Russia---which is weakened by a
population that is already in decline---for access to its minerals and
energy supplies. Or picture Japan eyeing nearby Russian oil and gas
reserves to power desalination plants and energy-intensive farming.
Envision nuclear-armed Pakistan, India, and China skirmishing at their
borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. Or
Spain and Portugal fighting over fishing rights---fisheries are
disrupted around the world as water temperatures change, causing fish to
migrate to new habitats.

Growing tensions engender novel alliances. Canada joins fortress America
in a North American bloc. (Alternatively, Canada may seek to keep its
abundant hydropower for itself, straining its ties with the
energy-hungry U.S.) North and South Korea align to create a technically
savvy, nuclear-armed entity. Europe forms a truly unified bloc to curb
its immigration problems and protect against aggressors. Russia,
threatened by impoverished neighbors in dire straits, may join the
European bloc.

Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Oil supplies are stretched
thin as climate cooling drives up demand. Many countries seek to shore
up their energy supplies with nuclear energy, accelerating nuclear
proliferation. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons
capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt, and North Korea. Israel, China, India,
and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.

The changes relentlessly hammer the world\'s \"carrying capacity\"---the
natural resources, social organizations, and economic networks that
support the population. Technological progress and market forces, which
have long helped boost Earth\'s carrying capacity, can do little to
offset the crisis---it is too widespread and unfolds too fast.

As the planet\'s carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern
reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and
energy supplies. As Harvard archeologist Steven LeBlanc has noted, wars
over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such
conflicts broke out, 25% of a population\'s adult males usually died. As
abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human
life.

Over the past decade, data have accumulated suggesting that the
plausibility of abrupt climate change is higher than most of the
scientific community, and perhaps all of the political community, are
prepared to accept. In light of such findings, we should be asking when
abrupt change will happen, what the impacts will be, and how we can
prepare---not whether it will really happen. In fact, the climate record
suggests that abrupt change is inevitable at some point, regardless of
human activity. Among other things, we should:

**•** Speed research on the forces that can trigger abrupt climate
change, how it unfolds, and how we\'ll know it\'s occurring.

**•** Sponsor studies on the scenarios that might play out, including
ecological, social, economic, and political fallout on key
food-producing regions.

**•** Identify \"no regrets\" strategies to ensure reliable access to
food and water and to ensure our national security.

**•** Form teams to prepare responses to possible massive migration, and
food and water shortages.

**•** Explore ways to offset abrupt cooling---today it appears easier to
warm than to cool the climate via human activities, so there may be
\"geo-engineering\" options available to prevent a catastrophic
temperature drop.

In sum, the risk of abrupt climate change remains uncertain, and it is
quite possibly small. But given its dire consequences, it should be
elevated beyond a scientific debate. Action now matters, because we may
be able to reduce its likelihood of happening, and we can certainly be
better prepared if it does. It is time to recognize it as a national
security concern.

The Pentagon\'s reaction to this sobering report isn\'t known---in
keeping with his reputation for reticence, Andy Marshall declined to be
interviewed. But the fact that he\'s concerned may signal a sea change
in the debate about global warming. At least some federal thought
leaders may be starting to perceive climate change less as a political
annoyance and more as an issue demanding action.

If so, the case for acting now to address climate change, long a hard
sell in Washington, may be gaining influential support, if only behind
the scenes. Policymakers may even be emboldened to take steps such as
tightening fuel-economy standards for new passenger vehicles, a measure
that would simultaneously lower emissions of greenhouse gases, reduce
America\'s perilous reliance on OPEC oil, cut its trade deficit, and put
money in consumers\' pockets. Oh, yes---and give the Pentagon\'s fretful
Yoda a little less to worry about.

*Feedback: <dstipp@fortunemail.com>*