National Security and Climate Change.

Fun Editorial from your Canadian Curator of Ideas worth sharing! (I want to supplant Andrew Coyne one day!)

The next time someone has an unearned opinion on climate change and you can’t escape their communications (which seems to happen a lot in Calgary and Alberta) keep in mind these thoughts from a dozen US military generals who contributed to a report called National Security and Climate Change. It was published in 2007, but things haven’t improved since then. Fortify yourself by also counting the number of unprecedented extreme climate events in the last 17 years.  (translation for 2024 influencer culture-Generals= serious people-each of these US Generals dealt with more hard power then a ‘barel of billionaires’ combined- cute eh! Barel of Billionaires- I hope it catches on.)

“Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges” (Translation-National Security challenges in the US= Canada will also share in the pain)

“The predicted effects of climate change over the coming decades include extreme weather events, drought, flooding, sea level rise, retreating glaciers, habitat shifts, and the increased spread of life-threatening diseases. These conditions have the potential to disrupt our way of life and to force changes in the way we keep ourselves safe and secure.” (Seems self explanatory- your local flat earther will probably disagree)

I live in Calgary, an oil and gas town with some regionally powerful companies and a motto of Blue Sky City- ironic since fossil fuels tend to spoil blue skies in other places. I recognize and shake my head that the Alberta economy is still driven by the extraction of fossil fuels. Our economic future continues to be dependent on loading the atmosphere with carbon, no amount of spin from well fed politicians or comms/political professionals is going to change that. (hopefully we will have less and less dependence and spin- but to tell you the truth it’s only a hope plan for now- just count the number of 2050 net zero goals!)

I understand that many of my friends and fellow citizens work in oil and gas but true friends or citizens don’t lie to each other. To my dismay public services continue being funded through revenue from extractive industries.  Not what Peter Lougheed wanted to have happen! That Heritage Trust Fund he created was designed to prevent this, but continues to be hijacked by unscrupulous politicians and lobbyists since Premier Lougheed was in charge. We are a baby petro state through and through. National security is supposedly the cornerstone of any conservative government but not in Alberta or Canada.

Having said that-we don’t need to gaslight people with how green our oil and gas companies are. The provincial political parties and the current one running the government continues to be ineffective. They are what they are. We do need to have adult conversations about what most needs doing with our current predicament. The very thing our city depends on is the cause of climate volatility.  What does even better look like? What does it mean to be a citizen, city, province, country that is wise? We have to believe that doing good and doing well is possible. Otherwise barels of billionaires are all we get.

Do share on if some of this resonates. 🙏🏽

Reference: National Security and the threat of Climate Change. https://shorturl.at/ExqRr