COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. military veterans in Copenhagen have called for a comprehensive climate-protection agreement to avert severe threats to global security arising from global warming.
"Global security is critical to American security," said Jonathan Powers, a former Army captain who served in Iraq from May 2003 to July 2004. "We are here to support an international agreement on climate change for global security reasons. … We want to secure America with clean energy."
Powers is part of Operation FREE, a coalition of U.S. war veterans who believe it is paramount that America becomes energy independent and acts against climate change.
While the United States may experience more severe storms, it will be the effects in other countries that will eventually threaten America's security most, said retired Major Gen. Donald Edwards from Maine.
A sea-level rise of just 3 to 4 feet will have "catastrophic effects" on river deltas in Africa and Asia, said Edwards, who served 37 years in the U.S. Army. If people are forced to leave those areas, "governments (there) will be significantly weakened, perhaps toppled," he said. Then, "terrorists will find those populations to be very fertile grounds for recruitment and many of those areas may become significant problems in terms of global peace."
U.S. Marine Corps reservist Alex Cornell du Houx called climate change "a threat multiplier" and said America's legislators need to start acting at home.
"It's critical that climate-change legislation passes through the Congress," he said. "Our dependence on a single source of energy -- oil -- is making us vulnerable."
A climate and energy bill is currently stalled in the Senate, but officials hope it can be passed by the end of April.
The U.S. military has already recognized the threat posed by climate change, said Michael Breen, a former Army captain who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon and the CIA have set up climate-change centers to monitor the issue, and the U.S. Navy and Marines have pledged to reduce their carbon emissions over the next 15 years, he said.
While some still question whether climate change is man-made or poses a major threat, the war veterans are taking this issue very seriously.
"As a former commander, if 95 percent of my intelligence told me I had an imminent threat and 5 percent told me there was nothing to worry about I'd be criminally negligent if I did not act to address the threat," Breen said.
Operation FREE stands for Freedom from fossil fuel dependence; Right to affordable, clean energy; Economic growth; Environmental security and renewal.
