A new report from the Congressional Research Service describes government agency plans to anticipate and adapt to the effects of climate change, as required by a 2013 executive order.
The first step is a vulnerability assessment. For the Department of Defense, climate change may have “potential impacts on geopolitics and national security interests that could result in [new] military operations, risks to existing military infrastructure, and hindrances to readiness and the ability to execute missions.”
“Climate change could affect the type, scope, frequency, tactics, and location of military operations worldwide,” the CRS report said. Already, “The Air Force has found that the combination of thawing permafrost, decreasing sea ice, and rising sea levels on the Alaskan coast has increased coastal erosion at several Air Force radar early-warning and communication installations.”
The new CRS report surveys the range of agency responses to date. See Climate Change Adaptation by Federal Agencies: An Analysis of Plans and Issues for Congress, February 23, 2015.
Other new and updated CRS reports that Congress has withheld from online public distribution include the following.
The Obama Administration’s Proposed AUMF Against the Islamic State: Some Immediate Takeaways, CRS Legal Sidebar, February 19, 2015
Common Questions About Federal Records and Related Agency Requirements, February 2, 2015
China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), January 30, 2015
International Law and Agreements: Their Effect Upon U.S. Law, February 18, 2015
Veto Override Procedure in the House and Senate, February 25, 2015
Anthem Data Breach: How Safe is Health Information Under HIPAA?, CRS Insights, February 24, 2015
Number of African American Judges Reaches All-Time High: Do Issues Remain?, CRS Insights, February 23, 2015
USCIS Funding and Accountability to Congress, CRS Insights, February 19, 2015
U.S. Citizens Kidnapped by the Islamic State, CRS Insights, February 13, 2015
and see, relatedly, How Much Are Americans Worth? By Aaron Gluck, International Affairs Review
Using the NIST as an example, the Radiation Physics Building (still without the funding to complete its renovation) is crucial to national security and the medical community. If it were to go down (or away), every medical device in the United States that uses radiation would be decertified within 6 months, creating a significant single point of failure that cannot be quickly mitigated.
The federal government can support more proactive, efficient, and cost-effective resiliency planning by certifying predictive models to validate and publicly indicate their quality.
We need a new agency that specializes in uncovering funding opportunities that were overlooked elsewhere. Judging from the history of scientific breakthroughs, the benefits could be quite substantial.
The cost of inaction is not merely economic; it is measured in preventable illness, deaths and diminished livelihoods.