Under Trilateral Commissioner Ashton Carter, Department Of Defense Shifts Focus To Climate Change

On February 17, 2015, President Obama appointed technocrat Ashton Carter to the cabinet position of Secretary of Defense.

Carter’s background and education is steeped in science. In 1976, he received a double-major in Physics and Medieval History from Yale University, graduating summa cum laude. After becoming a Rhodes Scholar, he received a doctorate in Theoretical Physics in 1979. After this formal education, Carter did postdoctoral work as a research associate fellow at Rockefeller University from 1979 to 1989 and as a research fellow at MIT.

Turning away from his career in theoretical physics, Carter instead pursued a career in political science, quickly rising up the ranks of academia and the Department of Defense.

The only reference to Ashton Carter being a member of the Trilateral Commission is on the Trilateral Commission’s own membership list. His online biographies have apparently been scrubbed of this fact.

Subsequently, Carter subtly changed the mission of the Department of Defense with the following press release:

DoD Releases Report on Security Implications of Climate Change

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2015 — Global climate change will aggravate problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries, according to a report the Defense Department sent to Congress yesterday.

The Senate Appropriations Committee requested the report in conjunction with the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015, asking that the undersecretary of defense for policy provide a report that identifies the most serious and likely climate-related security risks for each combatant command and the ways those commands integrate risk mitigation into their planning processes.

Fragile States Vulnerable to Disruption

The report finds that climate change is a security risk, Pentagon officials said, because it degrades living conditions, human security and the ability of governments to meet the basic needs of their populations. Communities and states that already are fragile and have limited resources are significantly more vulnerable to disruption and far less likely to respond effectively and be resilient to new challenges, they added.

“The Department of Defense’s primary responsibility is to protect national security interests around the world,” officials said in a news release announcing the report’s submission. “This involves considering all aspects of the global security environment and planning appropriately for potential contingencies and the possibility of unexpected developments both in the near and the longer terms.

“It is in this context,” they continued, “that the department must consider the effects of climate change — such as sea level rise, shifting climate zones and more frequent and intense severe weather events — and how these effects could impact national security.”

Integrating Climate-Related Impacts Into Planning

To reduce the national security implications of climate change, combatant commands are integrating climate-related impacts into their planning cycles, officials said. The ability of the United States and other countries to cope with the risks and implications of climate change requires monitoring, analysis and integration of those risks into existing overall risk management measures, as appropriate for each combatant command, they added.

The report concludes the Defense Department already is observing the impacts of climate change in shocks and stressors to vulnerable nations and communities, including in the United States, the Arctic, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America, officials said.

Thus, we see that Carter is “integrating climate-related impacts into their planning cycles.”

In contrast and according to the Department’s own web site, “The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country.”

Is this a significant shift? You bet it is, and it is at the instance of a top-tier global technocrat, Ashton Carter.