Climate Changed
Pentagon Warns of Dire Risk to Bases, Troops From Climate Change
- ‘Effects of a changing climate are a national security issue’
- The report to Congress is at odds with Trump’s position
Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
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The U.S. Defense Department has issued a dire report on how climate change could affect the nation’s armed forces and security, warning that rising seas could inundate coastal bases and drought-fueled wildfires could endanger those that are inland.
The 22-page delivered to Congress on Thursday says about two-thirds of 79 mission-essential military installations in the U.S. that were reviewed are vulnerable now or in the future to flooding and more than half are at risk from drought. About half also are at risk from wildfires, including the threat of mudslides and erosion from rains after the blazes.