U.S. Military Precariously Unprepared for Climate Threats, War College & Retired Brass Warn

A string of climate-related disasters that crippled the strategic capability of multiple U.S military bases in recent years has exposed the military's vulnerability to extreme weather, putting a spotlight on its failure to prepare and the consequences to national security.

National security and service members' lives are at stake,
and working under a president who rejects science and ignores climate risks isn’t helping. 

Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, home to the U.S. Strategic Command, was incapacitated by historic flooding that swept through the Midwest in March. More than 130 structures were destroyed, and the cost of rebuilding has hit $1 billion and could go higher.

Hurricane Michael, a monster Category 5 storm, wiped out Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida in 2018, damaging 17 grounded F-22 stealth fighters and causing an estimated $5 billion in damage. Heat illnesses in the military are also rising, putting service members' lives at risk, a 2019 investigation by InsideClimate News and NBC News showed.

Yet the Defense Department, now facing a presidential administration that rejects science and ignores climate risks, has been slow to respond, and that's raising concerns across the military and from Congress's watchdog agency and military think tanks. In a series of reports this year, they questioned the military's readiness, offering foreboding conclusions that climate change poses significant threats to national security, military preparedness and personnel safety—threats they say the military is not fully equipped to handle.

Read the Inside Climate News story by David Hasemyer - “U.S. Military Precariously Unprepared for Climate Threats, War College & Retired Brass Warn.”