 So I've always had this hopeful almost romantic view of the world with respect to climate change And I've always thought as things get worse Human beings are going to be forced to come together like it or not You're gonna have to acknowledge that we all have a common interest in saving this planet and maintaining the habitability of this planet So even if you see the others as your enemy or your rival Like it or not, you've got to work with them Unfortunately, I'm realizing how naive that vision was especially after seeing headlines like this quote This is where the first climate wars will break out military strategists are now preparing for imminent warfare sparked by the effects of climate change Yeah, so if there's any aliens that have discovered us and you're more intelligent and you know, you have just been waiting for the right time to intervene I mean, we're on the verge of killing ourselves quite literally So now would be a really good time to intervene. So we're gonna get into the article here And they do describe how the climate change crisis is Going to lead to increased tensions and part of the issue is this designation of climate change as a national security threat Now at face value, it makes sense because climate change is a threat That's akin to a foreign invader, right? We're looking at portions of the United States that will succumb to the ocean in a way that, you know Other countries take territory from others. I mean, how is this any different our resources are at threat? Our populations are vulnerable So of course it makes sense to think of climate change as a national security threat But that designation is actually very very problematic, but let's get to the article here So this is from Mike Pearl of the Daily Beast who explains climate-related warfare is a near-term reality Not some far-off boogeyman according to leading defense thinkers and military strategists They are still talking about the importance of fighting climate change But they're also making plans to fight other human beings because of climate change So where will these climate-related battles take place? Some people argue they already have with controversial academic reports claiming recent conflicts were directly spurred by the effects of climate change Other military advisors and strategists have identified specific new wars that could erupt in Asia Africa or the Arctic The Atlantic Council and American think tank suggested in March that as Russia and China looked to new shipping routes through previously frozen Impassable waters around Greenland, Iceland and the Arctic Circle There could be a new era of great power competition in the region Britain and the US have responded to a huge increase in Russian and Chinese activity in the area with a beefed-up military and naval Presence of course an American aircraft carrier recently ventured into the Arctic Circle for the first time since the end of the Cold War Matthew Rendell a lecturer at the University of Nottingham whose research focuses on climate change and international relations argues that it is more likely that less stable more Disaster-prone places like Syria or Somalia will become the climate battlefields quote They are already hot most of them are also a lot poorer as a result They're more likely to suffer acute resource shortages mass migration of refugees and political instability Moreover Rendell said China and Russia have nuclear weapons They may quarrel over the Arctic, but they are unlikely to fight World War three over it. That would just be too costly Oh, well, thank God. That's a relief. I mean World War three would be terrible But just you know a bunch of different conflicts Scattered throughout the world perpetually possibly Definitely a relief now the issue aside from the conflict itself, of course, which in and of itself is bad is that you know if climate change is going to lead to More conflicts and conflicts will become a more common phenomenon as a result of climate change That of course is going to lead to bigger militaries more militarization globally speaking And if there's one thing we know at least with regard to the US military It's that the US military emits more CO2 than many industrialized nations so we have the United States with a military that emits more CO2 then Lots and lots of countries But if a bunch of countries now start militarizing even halfway to the point where we're at currently then that means More CO2 so I decided to hand draw an image that kind of demonstrates this cycle of Death that we've put ourselves in so as you can see climate change creates conflict which in turn leads to bigger Militaries which then leads to more CO2 emissions which worsens climate change which then creates conflict I mean do you see the issue here? It's a death spiral and the only question is what's going to kill us first climate change or War now I want to go back to the beginning of the video where I talked about climate change as a national security threat and We need to really look into that and what the United States government says that that means because to us Individually we can think about it in a certain way But the way that we view climate change as a national security threat is not the way that the United States government and the Department of Defense Views climate change as a national security threat now in the Department of Defense's lengthy climate adaptation plan they do in fact identify climate change as a national security threat and Yes, that's technically accurate But it's not like they view it as a threat in the sense that it's akin to a foreign invader threatening to annex South Florida It's viewed in the sense that it threatens military operations and makes us less capable of dealing with foreign threats if We don't adapt so It's not a national security threat in that it's going to lead to you know our population being vulnerable because of food shortages and you know Extreme weather conditions. It's a national security threat in the sense that it makes us less ready militarily it makes it makes us less capable of effectively doing war and killing others I mean, there's also food and water shortages which they cite as a reason to expect more terrorism and cyber attacks and Countries more generally speaking not just the US are viewing climate change as a national security threat And so far as it's going to make them less effective in combat and more on this as John Kerry special presidential envoy for climate Tweeted shortly after the election of Joe Biden America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat that it is Corey the University Leeds professor has said it carries tweet was an example of climate Securitization which he defined as making something understood through the lens of security Corey questioned this approach Asking why is it national security and not human security or an ecological security crisis? The military strategy is being generated to confront these new issues focus on adapting to the new challenges Not massively reducing their own carbon footprints. The Pentagon's climate change plan does talk about reducing greenhouse gas emissions But mitigation is third on the plans list of guiding terms after Adaptation and resilience if the rich countries the chief causers of global warming start pouring money into their national security apparatus Instead of decarbonization and helping vulnerable countries adapt it will add insult to injury Corey said so understand whenever a Democrat and liberals say that climate change is a national security threat They don't mean that it's a national security threat and we have to stop climate change They mean climate change is a threat because it's going to hinder their military exercises, which they will continue and Likely ramp up as a result of climate change, which will cause more conflict again. We'll put up the death spiral Circle that I drew because I'm very proud of it because I think that it represents the situation Absolutely perfectly. Unfortunately. So, you know, I think that now we just need to be a little bit more cautious Whenever we see someone say climate change is a national security threat We have to ask them what they mean by that because it's probably not gonna mean what we hope it means It means we don't want to be more or less effective rather at killing people We want to be as effective as ever We want to be combat ready and you know, even if there's climate change We're still gonna make sure that we have the biggest baddest military that is fully capable of Going anywhere to kill people if need be That's not what we should be doing currently. We should all be scrambling to find a way to save the planet but unfortunately we're just Expecting climate change to be catastrophic and they're thinking of ways to deal with that rather than just stopping that They're just accepting it as an inevitability and Not trying to mitigate it further It's certainly a little bit Depressing to think about it that way But it's important that we know about this because no more applauding for liberals when they say climate change is a national security threat That should get your red flags up because it doesn't mean what you think it means