{"id":18767,"date":"2017-07-15T08:02:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-15T12:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=18767"},"modified":"2017-07-15T08:04:24","modified_gmt":"2017-07-15T12:04:24","slug":"major-climate-change-victory-in-u-s-house-on-bastille-day-2017-07-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/major-climate-change-victory-in-u-s-house-on-bastille-day-2017-07-14.html","title":{"rendered":"Major climate change victory in U.S. House on Bastille Day 2017-07-14"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nOn the anniversary of the French Revolution against a corrupt old regime,\r\nthe U.S. House of Representatives took a step towards independence from\r\nthe clammy grip of the fossil fuel companies.\r\nThis has direct implications on Moody AFB<\/a>.\r\nNo more pipelines<\/a>. Solar power<\/a> now.\r\n

\r\nBethany Allen-Ebrahimian, 14 July 2017,\r\nIn Landmark Move, GOP Congress Calls Climate Change ‘Direct Threat’ to Security:\r\nExtreme weather and rising seas threaten bases from Virginia to Guam. For the first time, a Republican House has voted to recognize that.<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nOne\r\nstudy<\/a>\r\nlast year found that rising oceans threaten 128 military\r\ninstallations on the coasts, including naval facilities worth around\r\n$100 billion.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Pentagon has been aware for years of\r\n\r\n the looming danger\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nrepresented by climate change. But partisan infighting in Congress,\r\nbudget sequestration, and the toxic nature of the climate debate\r\nhave hamstrung the Defense Dept. from taking steps to protect key\r\nassets — or even identifying which facilities face the most\r\nserious threats.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThis week, though, the Pentagon may have gotten a boost — from\r\nthe unlikeliest of places.\r\nThe Republican-controlled House retained an\r\n\r\namendment<\/a> to the 2018\r\ndefense funding bill affirming that “climate change is a\r\ndirect threat to the national security of the United States.”\r\nIt orders defense officials to draw up a report laying out which\r\nfacilities would be most affected.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

\r\nIt’s not just the DoD’s over-extended worldwide bases that are at risk,\r\nnor even its troops in theatres with vulnerable supply lines to outposts\r\nif they aren’t yet converted to sun or wind power,\r\n\r\nnor even the coastal bases in the\r\nstudy<\/a>.\r\n

Moody Air Force Base<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nMoody Air Force Base (AFB) is not immune to effects of floods when\r\nthey ravage its host county (Lowndes) and city (Valdosta),\r\nas they did in 2009 and 2013. Sure, those were mostly caused\r\nby too much clearcutting and paving.\r\nBut those floods are not going to get less as the weather worsens.\r\n

\r\nMoody AFB is a training base,\r\nso this paragraph in\r\n\r\nthe amendment<\/a>\r\nis directly relevant to Moody:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n(7) The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has stated: “DOD\r\nlinks changes in precipitation patterns with potential climate\r\nchange impacts such as changes in the number of consecutive days of\r\nhigh or low precipitation as well as increases in the extent and\r\nduration of droughts, with an associated increase in the risk of\r\nwildfire. . . this may result in mission vulnerabilities such as\r\nreduced live-fire training due to drought and increased wildfire\r\nrisk.”.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd when Moody personnel are deployed overseas, which climate change\r\nwill make increasingly likely, they’re not here shopping. Not to mention\r\nsome of them won’t come back, which is not good.\r\n

\r\n

\r\n(5) Former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Gordon Sullivan has\r\nstated: “Climate change is a national security issue. We found\r\nthat climate insta bility will lead to instability in geopolitics\r\nand impact American military operations around the world.”.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Southern Company solar deployment<\/a><\/H4>\r\n\r\n

\r\nSouthern Company has been busily putting solar farms at military\r\nbases in\r\n\r\nGeorgia<\/a>\r\nand\r\n\r\nFlorida<\/a>, some of them the same coastal bases of\r\nth\r\nstudy<\/a>.\r\nGeorgia Power’s biggest ever solar farm is\r\n139 MW recently at\r\n\r\nWarner Robins AFB<\/a>\r\n(bigger than the 10 MW solar farm someobdy else already did there three years ago<\/a>).\r\nI’m told (by a very highly placed source) that Georgia Power\r\nis negotiating about Moody AFB.\r\n

Pipeline workers need to start retraining for solar jobs<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\nYou know what makes pipeline personnel mad?\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhen you point out they’re directly contributing to climate change,\r\nthus their pipeline is a threat to national security.\r\nThat’s certainly what happened when I pointed that out to\r\nSabal Trail’s governmental contact after a Lowndes County Commission\r\nmeeting several years ago.\r\nThat’s why he’s stalking around furious in the background in\r\nthe WALB TV report<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nSure, the workers doing the actual installation may not know that,\r\nbut the people who are selling these pipeline boondoggles to local,\r\nstate, and federal governments do, and their corporate executives certainly\r\ndo know.\r\n

\r\nFossil fuel executives and their sales amd marketing people know they’re\r\nbuying short-term profit at the expense of their country’s national security,\r\nnot to mention at the expense of local water, air, and property rights.\r\n

\r\nAnd pipeline workers better look at the handwriting on the wall\r\nand start retraining, because all those pipelines are going to be\r\nstranded assets before long, and their industry is going down, taking their jobs with it.\r\nMaybe they should follow the money.\r\nMatt Egan, CNN Money, 25 May 2017,\r\n\r\nSolar jobs are growing 17 times faster than the rest of the economy<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“It seems to be one of the few areas of high-paying, blue-collar\r\njobs — and you don’t have to learn to code,” said Bryan\r\nBirsic, CEO of Wunder Capital, a fintech company that allows\r\ninvestors to help finance solar panel installations.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSouthern Company already\r\n\r\nmore than doubled the renewable energy percentage\r\nof its energy mix in one year<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nSouthern Company CEO Tom Fanning and Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers:\r\nwell done!\r\nAnd please get on with doing more<\/a>.\r\nAll you other utilities, including yes, you, FPL, please get on with sun power for the Sunshine State and everywhere else.\r\n

\r\nSolar power is on track to produce more U.S. electricity than any other source by 2023<\/a>.\r\nThat’s even though \r\nSouthern Company is reducing its last year’s solar budget of $4.5 billion\r\nto $1.5 billion this year<\/a>.\r\nSure, solar tax credits may end.\r\nBut solar prices keep dropping due to sheer economy of scale,\r\nand even at higher prices a few years ago SO could have already\r\ninstalled enough sun and wind power for just the amount of the cost overruns\r\nat its Plant Vogtle nuclear quagmire to supply just as much power as\r\nthose two nuke units ever would if they were every finished.\r\n

\r\nTo quote Fanning: “Oh, solar panels! Oh, heck yeah!”\r\n

The Amendment<\/a><\/H4>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIt’s not quite the Declaration of Independence or the Storming of the Bastille.\r\nOr maybe it is, since the U.S. House of Representatives has recently\r\nbeen the fortress of fossil fuels futilely defending against the sun rising.\r\nAnd that fortress seems to have fallen to… the U.S. military.\r\n

\r\nHere is the text of\r\n\r\nthe amendment<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nAMENDMENT TO H.R. 2810\r\n
\r\nOFFERED BY MR. LANGEVIN OF RHODE ISLAND\r\n

\r\nAt the appropriate place in title III, insert the following:\r\n

\r\n1 SEC. 3ll. REPORT ON EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON\r\n
2 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.<\/span>\r\n

\r\n
3 (a) FINDINGS.—Congress makes the following find-\r\n
4 ings:\r\n
5 (1) Secretary of Defense James Mattis has\r\n
6 stated: “It is appropriate for the Combatant Com-\r\n
7 mands to incorporate drivers of instability that im-\r\n
8 pact the security environment in their areas into\r\n
9 their planning.”.\r\n
10 (2) Secretary of Defense James Mattis has\r\n
11 stated: “I agree that the effects of a changing cli-\r\n
12 mate — such as increased maritime access to the\r\n
13 Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among oth-\r\n
14 ers — impact our security situation.”.\r\n
15 (3) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Jo-\r\n
16 seph Dunford has stated: “It’s a question, once\r\n
17 again, of being forward deployed, forward engaged,\r\n
18 and be in a position to respond to the kinds of nat-\r\n

2<\/p>\r\n

1 ural disasters that I think we see as a second or\r\n
2 third order effect of climate change.”.\r\n
3 (4) Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates\r\n
4 has stated: “Over the next 20 years and more, cer-\r\n
5 tain pressures-population, energy, climate, economic,\r\n
6 environmental-could combine with rapid cultural, so-\r\n
7 cial, and technological change to produce new\r\n
8 sources of deprivation, rage, and instability.”.\r\n
9 (5) Former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army\r\n
10 Gordon Sullivan has stated: “Climate change is a\r\n
11 national security issue. We found that climate insta-\r\n
12 bility will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact\r\n
13 American military operations around the world.”.\r\n
14 (6) The Office of the Director of National Intel-\r\n
15 ligence (ODNI) has stated: “Many countries will en-\r\n
16 counter climate-induced disruptions—such as weath-\r\n
17 er-related disasters, drought, famine, or damage to\r\n
18 infrastructure—that stress their capacity to respond,\r\n
19 cope with, or adapt. Climate-related impacts will also\r\n
20 contribute to increased migration, which can be par-\r\n
21 ticularly disruptive if, for example, demand for food\r\n
22 and shelter outstrips the resources available to assist\r\n
23 those in need.”.\r\n
24 (7) The Government Accountability Office\r\n
25 (GAO) has stated: “DOD links changes in precipita-\r\n

3<\/p>\r\n

1 tion patterns with potential climate change impacts\r\n
2 such as changes in the number of consecutive days\r\n
3 of high or low precipitation as well as increases in\r\n
4 the extent and duration of droughts, with an associ-\r\n
5 ated increase in the risk of wildfire. . . this may re-\r\n
6 sult in mission vulnerabilities such as reduced live-\r\n
7 fire training due to drought and increased wildfire\r\n
8 risk.”.\r\n
9 (8) A three-foot rise in sea levels will threaten\r\n
10 the operations of more than 128 United States mili-\r\n
11 tary sites, and it is possible that many of these at-\r\n
12 risk bases could be submerged in the coming years.\r\n
13 (9) As global temperatures rise, droughts and\r\n
14 famines can lead to more failed states, which are\r\n
15 breeding grounds of extremist and terrorist organi-\r\n
16 zations.\r\n
17 (10) In the Marshall Islands, an Air Force\r\n
18 radar installation built on an atoll at a cost of\r\n
19 $1,000,000,000 is projected to be underwater within\r\n
20 two decades.\r\n
21 (11) In the western United States, drought has\r\n
22 amplified the threat of wildfires, and floods have\r\n
23 damaged roads, runways, and buildings on military\r\n
24 bases.\r\n

4<\/p>\r\n

1 (12) In the Arctic, the combination of melting\r\n
2 sea ice, thawing permafrost, and sea-level rise is\r\n
3 eroding shorelines, which is damaging radar and\r\n
4 communication installations, runways, seawalls, and\r\n
5 training areas.\r\n
6 (13) In the Yukon Training Area, units con-\r\n
7 ducting artillery training accidentally started a wild-\r\n
8 fire despite observing the necessary practices during\r\n
9 red flag warning conditions.\r\n
10 (b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-\r\n
11 gress that—\r\n
12 (1) climate change is a direct threat to the na-\r\n
13 tional security of the United States and is impacting\r\n
14 stability in areas of the world both where the United\r\n
15 States Armed Forces are operating today, and where\r\n
16 strategic implications for future conflict exist;\r\n
17 (2) there are complexities in quantifying the\r\n
18 cost of climate change on mission resiliency, but the\r\n
19 Department of Defense must ensure that it is pre-\r\n
20 pared to conduct operations both today and in the\r\n
21 future and that it is prepared to address the effects\r\n
22 of a changing climate on threat assessments, re-\r\n
23 sources, and readiness; and\r\n
24 (3) military installations must be able to effec-\r\n
25 tively prepare to mitigate climate damage in their\r\n

5<\/p>\r\n

1 master planning and infrastructure planning and de-\r\n
2 sign, so that they might best consider the weather\r\n
3 and natural resources most pertinent to them.\r\n
4 (c) REPORT.—\r\n
5 (1) REPORT REQUIRED.—Not later than one\r\n
6 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the\r\n
7 Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committees\r\n
8 on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of\r\n
9 Representatives a report on vulnerabilities to mili-\r\n
10 tary installations and combatant commander re-\r\n
11 quirements resulting from climate change over the\r\n
12 next 20 years.\r\n
13 (2) ELEMENTS.—The report on vulnerabilities\r\n
14 to military installations and combatant commander\r\n
15 requirements required by paragraph (1) shall include\r\n
16 the following:\r\n
17 (A) A list of the ten most vulnerable mili-\r\n
18 tary installations within each service based on\r\n
19 the effects of rising sea tides, increased flood-\r\n
20 ing, drought, desertification, wildfires, thawing\r\n
21 permafrost, and any other categories the Sec-\r\n
22 retary determines necessary.\r\n
23 (B) An overview of mitigations that may\r\n
24 be necessary to ensure the continued oper-\r\n
25 ational viability and to increase the resiliency of\r\n

6<\/p>\r\n

1 the identified vulnerable military installations\r\n
2 and the cost of such mitigations.\r\n
3 (C) A discussion of the climate-change re-\r\n
4 lated effects on the Department, including the\r\n
5 increase in the frequency of humanitarian as-\r\n
6 sistance and disaster relief missions and the\r\n
7 theater campaign plans, contingency plans, and\r\n
8 global posture of the combatant commanders.\r\n
9 (D) An overview of mitigations that may\r\n
10 be necessary to ensure mission resiliency and\r\n
11 the cost of such mitigations.\r\n
12 (3) FORM.—The report required subparagraph\r\n
13 (1) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may\r\n
14 contain a classified annex. \r\n
<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>\r\n

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today<\/a>!<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the anniversary of the French Revolution against a corrupt old regime, the U.S. House of Representatives took a step towards independence from the clammy grip of the fossil fuel companies. This has direct implications on Moody AFB. No more pipelines. Solar power now. Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, 14 July 2017, In Landmark Move, GOP Congress Calls […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,18,20,570,571,104,6687,24],"tags":[6665,6965,8719,293,9383,59,8751,6664,8701,8708,2782,9857,8702,8710,12,7,8783,8784,2421,1024,6076,6597,8714,108,6966,6339,2580,6,8752,1201],"class_list":["post-18767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-georgia-power","category-law","category-military","category-moody-afb","category-nuclear","category-pipeline-2","category-solar","tag-bastille-day","tag-brian-fahrenthold","tag-climate-change","tag-drought","tag-enbridge","tag-flood","tag-florida","tag-french-revolution","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-instability","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-military","tag-moody-afb","tag-national-security","tag-paul-bowers","tag-pipeline","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-spectra-energy","tag-tom-fanning","tag-training","tag-valdosta","tag-walb","tag-warner-robins-afb"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-4SH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18767"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18776,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18767\/revisions\/18776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}