skip to main content
Language:
Search Limited to: Search Limited to: Resource type Show Results with: Show Results with: Search type Index

Climate Security Threat – America’s Achilles’ Heel?

Homeland security affairs, 2018-12 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

2018 by the author(s). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the following terms: Homeland Security Affairs is an academic journal available free of charge to individuals and institutions. Because the purpose of this publication is the widest possible dissemination of knowledge, copies of this journal and the articles contained herein may be printed or downloaded and redistributed for personal, research or educational purposes free of charge and without permission. Any commercial use of Homeland Security Affairs or the articles published herein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the copyright holder. The copyright of all articles published in Homeland Security Affairs rests with the author(s) of the article. Homeland Security Affairs is the online journal of the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS). ;EISSN: 1558-643X

Full text available

Citations Cited by
  • Title:
    Climate Security Threat – America’s Achilles’ Heel?
  • Author: Schaffer, Patricia
  • Subjects: Adaptation ; Air pollution ; Building codes ; Central business districts ; Change detection ; Children ; Climate change ; Climate change adaptation ; Climate effects ; Climate policy ; Codification ; Decision making ; Defense programs ; Democracy ; Disaster management ; Disasters ; Drought ; Emergency preparedness ; Environmental impact ; Extreme weather ; Food quality ; Fresh water ; Freshwater environments ; Glaciers ; Heat waves ; Intelligence ; Land use ; Leadership ; Livestock ; Melting ; National security ; Pollutants ; Prediction models ; Public policy ; Rain ; Rainstorms ; Regulations ; Resilience ; Risk ; Safety ; Sea level ; Severe weather ; Storms ; Sustainability ; Threats ; Water resources ; Weather
  • Is Part Of: Homeland security affairs, 2018-12
  • Description: The United States of America has a real problem with climate change. While the concept of climate change may be straightforward, the problems associated with its causes and effects, remedies, and necessary adaptations are incredibly complex. Today, climate change has become a deeply controversial topic despite scientific consensus on its origins and its looming catastrophic threat. Alarming as it is globally, climate change has also been recognized as a threat to the national security of the United States. Is the U.S. government fulfilling its obligation to ensure the “safety and security of the American people” by creating resilience standards that adequately guard against this known and growing threat?[1] This thesis examines the factors that are preventing the nation from understanding and adapting to climate security threats by exploring the intersection between climate security and emergency management. Federal, state, and local emergency management is concerned with the safety of the public before, during, and after disasters. Framed by qualitative literature on the climate threat itself, this thesis examines how presidential narratives have affected sustainable leadership on climate change action, the effect of public policy that supports climate adaptation, and how adaptation measures in the United States compare to our global allies such as Canada and the European Union. The effects of climate change are already surfacing, and unchecked emissions (pollutants) spell an increasing prediction for catastrophic global impacts. Today, intense storms and heat waves are rare. However, predictive modeling shows a grim future for many regions: extensive, persisting droughts; heatwaves that force the land to absorb ever more heat, creating intolerable temperatures for humans and livestock; intensified rainstorms that drop incredible amounts of water in short periods of time; and more frequent and destructive storm systems. The result will be forced migration from impacted areas around the world, reduced quantity and quality of sustainable food crops, undependable fresh water resources, and higher temperatures that will change growing seasons and modify pestilence and disease. And these are only some of the known implications of climate-induced weather extremes. Climate change is included in numerous national threat analyses from the Department of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Council. However, presidential narratives over the past few decades have shown great power to shape public discussion and policy implications about climate change. Federal agencies exist to implement public policy that is dependent upon laws, regulations, and executive directives. Since the emergency management community is most interested in safety, this thesis briefly examines the laws that guide emergency management grants and the use of minimum standards. Land use and building codes are particularly critical to this discussion, yet these areas of public policy are not keeping up with current public safety needs, much less with the future impacts of climate change. Additionally, there is very little public discourse about the known risks of climate change, even though severe weather events are becoming more frequent and intense. Still, the United States does not have a national climate adaptation policy that drives federal guidance. Canada shares many climate-related threats with the United States, as well as some historical presidential narratives. However, Canada is approaching these threats proactively; the country is encouraging discourse across its territories—addressing challenges unique to each area—and actively promoting climate adaptation activities. The European Union also has many geologic, geographic, and meteorological similarities with the United States. However, membership in the European Union is voluntary; the EU laws that govern climate adaptation are codified by law through membership, which creates willingness to achieve progress. Through research and analysis, the thesis concludes that the United States is not doing enough to protect the public from the effects of climate change—not just the direct impacts, but also the cascading consequences from those impacts over time. For example, melting glaciers in the Antarctic and Greenland may have no bearing on weather in the United States; over time, however, these melting ancient waters will affect the salinity, density, temperature, currents, and volume of seas around the Earth. Consequently, the sea level in downtown Miami and the City of New York will rise on a daily basis—not just at high tide. The laws governing emergency management are not adequate to improve resilience in the face of this threat, and do not promote risk consciousness to climate security. Furthermore, there are no federal laws or regulations governing local land use or building code regulations; the guidance that does exist does not require decision-makers to use recent disaster data to improve their recommendations. After a disaster, the federal government—or the American taxpayer—pays to rebuild public infrastructure to pre-disaster condition, reinforcing an unending cycle of risk. This is a significant gap in accountability. The United States has long embodied the fortitude and discipline that is synonymous with global leadership. But the most important lesson we can learn from our allies is to embrace a systemic policy path toward climate resilience. U.S. leadership at the federal level has avoided taking any such path. Using transparent scientific evidence, we must adopt a risk-based decision-making culture of preparedness. Climate change and its impacts have stymied this great nation. The American public, in its right for representation as the leader of democracy around the world, should expect—should demand—more to protect our children and all future generations. [1] Department of Homeland Security, The 2014 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (Washington, DC: DHS, 2014), 8, https://www.dhs.gov/​sites/​default/​files/​publications/​2014-qhsr-final-508.pdf.
  • Publisher: Monterey: Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: EISSN: 1558-643X
  • Source: US Government Documents
    DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals
    ROAD: Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources
    ProQuest Central
Back to results list
INSPIRE LIBRARY - TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY (84-028) 37 755 057 Feedback
19 Nguyen Huu Tho St. Dist.7, HCM thuvien@tdtu.edu.vn

Copyright © 2017 INSPIRE LIBRARY - TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY

Searching Remote Databases, Please Wait