Deep Currents

Are you sitting down? Okay, now read this post from Small Precautions, which starts with the following quote:

Six months ago, the Center for a New American Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies published a landmark paper on “The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change.” The effort was the result of a deep collaboration between high-level former US intelligence officials, climate scientists, and economists, and the reading is extremely sobering. These are sober serious people, and what they conclude is that, “Unchecked climate change equals the world depicted by Mad Max, only hotter, with no beaches, and perhaps with even more chaos. While such a characterization may seem extreme, a careful and thorough examination of all the many potential consequences associated with global climate change is profoundly disquieting. The collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life. The only comparable experience for many in the group was considering what the aftermath of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange might have entailed during the height of the Cold War.”

Written: May 22nd, 2008